Our fall harvest holiday, Sukkot, begins tonight. This is easily one of my favorite times of year as the leaves change colors and the air becomes crisp and new. It’s a beautiful holiday that celebrates abundance and calls for going outdoors.
Simchat Torah is then just around the corner. Torah appreciators everywhere will be re-telling their favorite stories and dancing seven times around. Good times.
You can celebrate these holidays at home too! Here are some ways to bring these holidays into your home and family:
1. Do you have a backyard? A front yard? A balcony? Any outdoor space atall? Build a Sukkah!! Here are some easy-to-follow instructions.. I think the most important things to remember are that A. You have to be able to see the stars and B. Put lots of love into the decorations. This temporary structure is fragile in its impermanence and solid in it’s shelter of love and peace. And by the way, for all of us city kids out there, I think any time spent outside during Sukkot counts as time under the great Sukkah of sky and earth.
2. Make a point to sit outside under a tree together. Sukkah means shelter. We use the word to describe a Sukkat Shalom – Shelter of Peace. Imagine that the branches are your shelter. Doesn’t that feel good?
3. Print out the fall holiday ShirLaLa coloring pages for your children.
4. Celebrate the fall harvest for dinner! Eat pumpkin and sweet potatoes and beets and acorn and butternut squash and apples and pomegranates and cranberries and you get the idea. Here are gorgeous recipes from my culinary expert and food writer friend Leah Koenig.
5. Bring in leaves from outside to decorate your home. They will look beautiful on your table alongside some apples and a gourds.
6. For Simchat Torah, make a crown to wear just like the letters in the Torah.
7. Read your favorite Torah stories together. Being Torah is one of my favorite books of stories for children of all ages.
What do you do to celebrate Sukkot and Simchat Torah at home and with your family? Send in your ideas to shira@shirlala.com !
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Posted in Activities for home and classroom, Simchat Torah, Sukkot
