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Survival Tactics for Holiday Entertaining with Kids

Thanksgiving, Christmas, Fourth of July, Passover or Easter are always fun! That is-fun for those who do not have to cook, clean, shop for and host the holiday meal. When you throw parenting on top of everything else you have to do it becomes difficult to enjoy entertaining or being with friends and family. Here are a few tips for keeping your kids busy and helpful during holiday meals.

It doesn't have to be
Gorilla Warfare

Keep your Cool

You have a lot going on and a lot on your mind. Your kids are wired because....well... that's what they do around holidays. Lashing out, yelling or overreacting at your family won't make you feel better. Keep in mind the feeling of anxiety and stress is temporary and normal.

Teach Your Kids Team Playing as a Form of Cleaning

Cleaning can be an excellent method of teaching team player values. For example, folding the laundry. Give each child a specific piece of laundry that they are in charge of folding. Jenny is responsible for towel folding. James is in charge of T-shirt folding and Sarah matches socks, etc. If you have little tikes, give them underwear to fold; it's pretty hard to fold underwear wrong. Your kids will see how fast work gets done when everyone works together and they'll take that value with them into adulthood.

Make Cleaning a Game

Mary Poppins was the greatest at making cleaning fun! You can be great too! Once you have given your cleaning assignments, challenge your kids to take turns naming states, cities, countries, mamm

als or even presidents as they clean. If your kids are very young, have them name Disney characters or colors. If they're older, you can have them name movies, actors, politicians, musicians etc. You can just take turns naming items or you can pose a question. For instance, "what is the largest mammal on the face of the earth today (A blue whale)?" Believe it or not, kids love to name things. Naming makes them feel good about knowing something. Just think, as you clean, you are stimulating your child's memory and higher reasoning skills. You and your kids will be surprised at how fast the work gets done when you're having fun!

Activities for Avoiding Kitchen Disruptions

The hardest part of preparing a meal on the actual Holiday is dealing with the disruption of kids in the kitchen when you are focused on cooking. Keep your kids busy and out of you hair by:

decorating

folding napkins (teach them a basic fan fold)

setting the table (give each kid something to set, Jenny-silverware, James-plates and Sarah-glasses, etc.)

serving dessert

you can set up a table and keep them busy with decorating sugar cookies.

clearing the table (you can give each kid a specific dish to remove from the table, rinse and load in the dishwasher and what work is left will be a breeze)

Seat the Young'ins Separately

Give your kids a separate table. They'll have more fun and so will you!

Holiday Videos

Rent several Holiday Theme videos. Have the video in the VCR and ready to go so that when they finish their meal before you, they will be pacified while you enjoy the rest of your meal and company.

By Bev Brock-Alexander