Decorating Your Home For Kwanzaa

In my previous blog I discussed the holiday of Kwanzaa. We are now just a week away from the start of the seven-day festival, which focuses on heritage, family and community. Kwanzaa is a cultural holiday, not a religious one and is meant to serve as an inspiration to African-American families and the community. And while the celebration begins on December 26th and ends January 1st, neither the observance nor the decorations should be combined with Christmas, Hanukkah or the New Year. People celebrating Kwanzaa deck their homes in black, red and green. That color scheme is carried throughout the … Continue reading

Home For The Holidays: Celebrating Kwanzaa

Another title for this blog could be: “Everything I Know About Kwanzaa I Learned From Elmo.” It’s a reference to a “Happy Holidays” Elmo video my 2-year-old daughter loves to watch over and over and over—-by now we both have the thing memorized. Kwanzaa happens to be one of the holidays Elmo learns about from his young “friends” on the tape. Elmo does a fantastic job of simplifying the holiday–allowing children of all ages to better comprehend and appreciate it. Viewers learn that Kwanzaa is a modest celebration. At the heart of the seven-day festival is a focus on heritage, … Continue reading