Happy Holiday!

You may have heard of Pastafarianism a.k.a the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (FSM), but did you know that they have a very special holiday in December? It’s called…wait for it…Holiday. Therefore, they are thrilled to hear people say “Happy Holidays” since they just assume that you’re inaccurately pluralizing the name.

One of the great things about Holiday, is that you can choose the date(s) that you’d like to celebrate it which makes planning so much easier. I’d suggest trying to make your celebration be on the most sacred day of the week for Pastafarians: Friday. AND because pirates are very important to Pastafarians, you can add piratey fun to the celebration.

But many Pastafarians have their Holiday on Christmas Day, which is then called FSMas. You can see what Pastafarians around the world do for their Holiday and other craft ideas on their site. I’ll be sharing some of those ideas in this post – they’ll be the ones that I thought would work best for a wide range of ages.

Now let’s get to it!

FLYER & DISPLAYS

Please feel free to use the above flyer template for your FSM-filled event.

I should add that the wonderful Kaddywhak on Deviant Art made the FSM that I’m using the most in this post. It’s labeled for non-commercial reuse with modification which is awesome. So go ahead and use that great FSM image for your displays or marketing.

Here are the words Happy Holiday! written with pasta:

Download and print off each of these files onto a ledger-sized paper and then cut them out to assemble a bigger banner that can be adhered to a wall, be a bunting on a table, etc.

And if you’re wondering, I used the meme-riffic font Impact for both this and the flyer.

You can fill your display with books, movies, and more about pasta, pirates, or both! You can even get some cheap pasta strainers as a fun way to add levels to your display.

BOOKS

Again, raid your collection for pirate and pasta books. Here are some that I think would work very well:

• Noodle Kids by Jonathon Sawyer (978-1592539635)
• Let’s Cook with Noodles! by Nancy Tuminelly (978-1617834226)
• Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs by Judi Barrett (978-0689306471)
• ABC Pasta by Juana Medina Rosas (978-1101999783)
• Strega Nona by Tomie dePaola (978-1442433557)
• Spaghetti with the Yeti by Adam and Charlotte Guillain (978-1405263511)
• Pirates Love Underpants by Claire Freedman (978-1442485129)
• There Was an Old Pirate Who Swallowed a Fish by Jennifer Ward (978-0761461968)

And these two books would be PERFECT for FSMas if you change the Christmases to ChriFSMasses:

• A Pirate’s Night Before Christmas by Philip Yates (978-1454913573)
• A Pirate’s Twelve Days of Christmas by Philip Yates (978-1454916826)

And this book comes highly recommended from The Librarian on the Loose‘s very own Awnali Mills:
Grandma and the Pirates by Phoebe Gilman. Awnali says, “It was one of my children’s favorites. Grandma gets kidnapped by pirates because they love her noodles!  It’s a charming little book, and covers a lot of bases for Pastafarians.”

SONGS & RHYMES

• On Top of Spaghetti! ON THE UKULELE!!!

• The Librarian Is on the Loose has a cute Noodle Song to the tune of If You’re Happy and You Know It.
• Let’s Play Music has 4 Pirate Song for Kids.

CRAFTS & ACTIVITIES

• Make something using PIRATE PASTA!!! Bonus: they also have Christmas Tree shaped pasta. Add some regular spaghetti noodles and you’ve got the makings of a perfect Holiday craft. But wait – there’s more! The ladies at Library Village show how easy it is to make colorful dry pasta.
• Storytime Katie shares lots of great ideas in her Pirates! storytime.
• There are lots of wonderful pirate storytime ideas on Sturdy for Common Things.
• My library had a pirate-themed month: Septembarrr. [Re-post coming soon]
• Here’s a coloring sheet that I made from Kaddywak’s art:

And here are two ideas from the FSM’s official site:

• Get a balloon artist and have them make balloon FSMs for some of the lucky participants.
• Upcycle your office’s shredded paper (you might need to get some pink or red paper to crumple into meatballs – googly eyes would send this craft over-the-top).

There you have it: a foundation for an epic Holiday program!

Worth noting:

As I have learned more about Pastafarianism (such as The Eight I’d Really Rather You Didn’ts), I realized that it does have some issues. Mainly that the first human being was a little person which is great (but they use the “M” word), and that women are encouraged to dress like pirate wenches. ::sigh::

But if we can overlook explaining immaculate conception or the fact that Santa isn’t real to kids at storytime, then I think that we can gloss over the less-than-ideal aspects of this religion.

As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts or ideas on this (or if you’re a Pastafarian and think that I’ve gotten something wrong, then please let me know!). Or, ya know…a penne for your thoughts. ::snort::

Why did I create this storytime? Find out here.