While working on my classic monster mashup, I could not get the song/idea for a mashup out of my head: Werewolf Bar Mitzvah. After finishing the designs, both the song and idea remained. Now, I’m not a fan of public libraries celebrating holidays. But I couldn’t help myself: between my love of laughter, and Halloween…
Several years back (10-12-13 to be exact) was when our library first participated All Hallows Read, I had collaborated with my husband Bruce to make a very short comic story to give out to trick-or-treaters based on an old folktale. I wrote about it extensively at that time, and will merge that information into this…
Yes, I got behind on sharing on my blog near the end of last year. But let’s just say that I felt that writing some other things in December mattered more than this particular warm-fuzziness. And our December was chock full of the warm fuzzies. Like, it has been one of the most reacted-to-by-adults theme…
Have you made it through all of my holiday postings? If your answer is “yes,” then you know what you should do? I know that I will! While working on all of my holiday posts, I kept debating whether or not to create foundation programs for pop-culture-based celebrations. The thought of writing at least a…
With over 500 federally recognized First Nations in the United States alone, I can honestly say that trying to create a respectful Native American holiday storytime was intimidating. By far, this post required the most research of all the holidays – and even now, I feel incredible pressure to get this “right.” And as I…
All-inclusive holiday programming and displays would not be complete without the roots of modern Christmas celebrations: Yule! The Pagan Yuletide consists of 12 days of celebrating with feasting, gift giving, and special rituals dedicated to each day or night. I honestly fell down a bit of a rabbit hole while researching this holiday because of…
I suspect that many of my readers have been awaiting this particular holiday celebration post with excited curiosity. I mean, how on earth will Rebecca handle this? Will kids be sacrificing their stuffed animals? Will they learn to chant in Latin? Will they all learn to proclaim “hail Satan?!” I have some bad news for…
Are you worried that your solstice program may be perceived as being about paganism? Or do you want to focus on the pagan aspects of the solstice and not get bogged down with science? Then the Humanists have the perfect holiday for you and your library: HumanLight! This December 23 celebration focuses on how awesome…
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…
HAPPY KRAMPUSNACHT EVERYBODY! Over the past few years, Krampusnacht has become more acknowledged and celebrated in the United States. This celebration takes place on December 5, the day before Saint Nicholas (who approves of the Krampus’ work) rewards the good children on Nikolaustag. Read more about it here since I’d rather get to the storytime…
It’s the most magical time of the year when public libraries are apparently beholden to be part of holiday celebrations. Fun times for some.
Several months ago I did something that would have shocked me even a year ago: I trolled an online youth services Facebook group (with the admins’ permission). My intentions with that post was to hopefully cause youth service librarians take a fresh look at how and why they promote holidays (particularly Christmas). I wanted others…
This year at the Children’s Library we decided to have a bit of fun on April Fool’s Day. One of my team members did some internet browsing to find some simple things for us to do that wouldn’t cause too much distress for our patrons. She came up with two great ideas (and unfortunately I…
