Celebrate the U.S. Flag this coming President's Day

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

The history of the U.S. flag is something not often talked about. If questioned not many people could even tell you how it came to be. With President’s Day coming up I believe we should celebrate it by learning the history of our nation's flag. Here are some things I didn’t know until I decided to start researching and learning more about the U.S. flag.

Make a Next-Gen Gingerbread House

A favorite seasonal tradition is decorating a gingerbread house with the family. Some make them from scratch, some use kits, and well some even buy them already made. This year the traditional gingerbread house is getting a Go Organically "renovation" with fun swaps and alternative decorations that everyone will love. It's being called the "Next-Gen Gingerbread House". Here's how it's done!

Step 1: Go House Hunting

First you'll need the gingerbread structure itself—meaning the walls, roof and doors. Your two options are baking and buying.

Baking: Find a basic gingerbread house recipe online, like this one from The Food Network. It includes paper patterns for your gingerbread house template so you'll know how big to make the walls, roof, etc. It's easy to swap out any of the ingredients for organic versions, such as organic butter or organic all-purpose flour.

Buying: The holidays can be hectic, so if you can make things easier with a pre-made kit, why not? This one from IKEA* includes just the structure itself and lets you add whatever decorations you want. Better yet? It's only $3.99. Perfect! If you're not near an IKEA, any kit will do. Simply save any unused decorations or icing for other holiday baking projects.

Step 2: Make the Cement

Next you'll need to make a binder to hold the structure together. Traditional royal icing is made with confectioners' sugar, egg whites and vanilla extract, and you can find the instructions here. For a Next-Gen version, consider modifying the recipe with coconut confectioners' sugar and free range eggs. Or skip the royal icing altogether in favor of melted organic white chocolate. Use your "cement" of choice to assemble the house and let it sit for a bit while you gather your decorations.

Step 3: Decorate with the Unexpected

Now comes the fun part: decorating! While we love candy canes and gumdrops as much as the next person, there's something so elegant about a natural-looking gingerbread house adorned with nuts, popcorn and fresh herbs. A few ideas to get you started:

• Thatched roof: Use shredded wheat cereal to create a thatched roof. You can either apply whole pieces as shingles, or shred them with your hands and scatter them across the roof for a rustic effect.
• Pathway: Create a "stone path" leading up to the front door using a mix of almonds and walnuts.
• Windows: Outline your windows with pumpkin or sunflower seeds to mimic the look of a wooden frame.
• Wreath: Shape a wreath out of fresh thyme to hang on the front of the house.
• Pop of color: Use Go Organically Organic Fruit Snacks to add visual interest while keeping the rest of the look low key. Stick on a red door knob or outline the roof with a string of colorful holiday "lights."

Happy decorating from all of us at Go Organically! Made with real fruit, our gluten-free, nut-free, dairy-free kids snacks are a great choice for your on-the-go life. Be sure to follow us on Facebook for more kid-friendly ideas!

*Note: Go Organically is not associated with IKEA.

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Disclosure: This is a sponsored post on behalf of the above mentioned brand. I received product(s) in exchange for my honest and unbiased thoughts. All thoughts and opinions stated are my own and are in no way influenced by my partnership with mentioned brands.

Advent or 12 Days of Christmas?

Some people are firm believers in celebrating the advent every year in December. While others are firmly against it. I for one like to celebrate the advent with my family, but with all the hustle and bustle going on we don't always remember to start on time, and don't always remember every single day along the way. Life is just so full and busy this time of year. To help relieve some of that stress we came up with a back-up plan. If we don't start the advent on time we start our 12 Days of Christmas celebrating instead. We start it whenever we realize we missed being able to fully celebrate the advent, and then move through the 12 days as we remember to do it - in other words not always 12 days in a row. However we always end the last day on Christmas Eve. This is just how we like to end our celebration in preparation for Christmas Day.

Each year we prepare a little something different for our 12 days of Christmas. This year we decided to do some fun drawstring bags with goodies inside of them. We are going to paint the numbers 1-12 on them so we know which day we are on and how many we have left. Using some super cute colored clothes pins I am able to hang the little bags from the picket fence pieces that we are going to also paint. Day 1 is actually going to be celebrated with the kids doing all of the painting, and mom and dad filling the bags. Each bag will have two small items for the kids (like squishy emoji's and bubble tape) so they both get the same thing to avoid arguments. And the last day will be filled with something extra special for the whole family to enjoy. I'm thinking maybe movie tickets or something we can do over Christmas break this year.

How about you? Do you have a special way you celebrate the Advent and/or 12 days of Christmas?
You can find lots of fun ways to celebrate the Advent and 12 days of Christmas on the Oriental Trading website. All products featured in this post are from Oriental Trading.

Connect with Oriental Trading: Facebook | Twitter | Pinterest | Instagram

Disclosure: This is a sponsored post on behalf of the above mentioned brand. I received monetary compensation or product(s) in exchange for my honest and unbiased thoughts. All thoughts and opinions stated are my own and are in no way influenced by my partnership with mentioned brands.

Christmas Traditions & Legends

Every year we do things around Christmas time that many would call traditions. And some traditions stem from legends started way before we were even born. You know like hanging mistletoe in a doorway so you can meet your sweetie there for a kiss. :-)

One of my all time favorite Christmas legends is leaving milk and cookies out for Santa - even though we all know he's not the one really eating them. I guess in some ways we are rewarding ourselves for all of our hard work during the holidays. Every year I make up little goodie bags for my daughter's teachers. And this year I decided to do them with a Christmas Legends theme. Instead of trying to make cookies from scratch and give them a glass of milk I opted for pre-packaged cookies, and little milk bottles filled with white packaged mints to look like the milk. This way I can prepare them ahead of time and not worry anything will spoil. I also found some milk and cookies ornaments that are super cute, and explain the legend of milk and cookies for those that might not know it.

Another fun tradition of ours that is also stemmed from a legend is hanging candy canes on the tree. I'm sure many don't even know there is a story behind the candy cane. My kids however know the story and take pride in it when we are decorating the tree with those red and white swirled candy J's. I've forgotten to pick up candy canes before, and even bought the wrong color (as I was told) and let me tell you it was not a good thing come decorating time. My kids are pretty particular about this tradition, and I'm okay with that.

How about you? Do you have any traditions/legends you celebrate with your family over the holidays?

You can find lots of fun (and some new) ways to celebrate traditions on the Oriental Trading website.

Connect with Oriental Trading: Facebook | Twitter | Pinterest | Instagram

Disclosure: This is a sponsored post on behalf of the above mentioned brand. I received monetary compensation or product(s) in exchange for my honest and unbiased thoughts. All thoughts and opinions stated are my own and are in no way influenced by my partnership with mentioned brands.