Indian Hindu immigrants, like all other immigrants appreciate much about our lives here. Yet, there are some things everyone misses from back home. Personally, my list is longish. But top three items I miss from home are these —
- Street Food – especially Street food in Ahmedabad because I could easily get Swaminarayan style (vegetarian – no egg – no onion no garlic) food EVERYWHERE.
- Clothes made for my body type.
- The city wide shared thrill of festivals.
The festivities are missed even more when our children are old enough to enjoy them. The importance of festivals in consolidating my Hindu identity and bond with Hindu religion, culture and society was never more obvious than the day when a student said “I don’t want to celebrate Diwali. It’s boring. I like Christmas!” 😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱 The HORROR! Diwali and Boring are words that do not belong in the same sentence Kiddo!!
We can not blame the children or the parents in these cases. We grew up in a world where even if we didn’t prep for the said festival personally, festival spirit surrounded us. But here, it’s different. We need to make an effort to connect our kids with the festivals. What’s more….. effort is often not enough. We need creativity. The things we did in India are not always feasible or attractive here in the States unless you have a robust active Hindu community and organization like Charlotte’s Hindu Center. Add to that festivals that are generally worship based and it all feels like a lost cause. Not to give up hope though because we have compiled a list of 10 activities you can do with your kids for Chaitra Navratri.
10 Ways to celebrate Chaitra Navaratri with your kids this year
- Activity Tracker – We have identified 7 small habits children can start developing during this time. You can copy our spreadsheet make changes to it and use it as an activity tracker for 9 days. If the kid/s consistently complete all activities on all 9 days, reward them with a trophy and completion certificate from Simply Sanatan. If they are consistent with 1 or 2 activities give them a participation certificate from Sanatan Dharma. We will even send your child an encouraging hand written letter if you like! Go to the bottom of this post to access the Activity Tracker spreadsheet.
- Nine nights of Religiously telling religious Bed time stories – If you don’t know any stories then check out David Frawley’s podcast on apple or check out stories on our Blog and use those! Make it something special that you only do during festivals. Dim the lights, play some mellow background instrumental music, cuddle together as a family on a couch or bed and then tell the story or listen to a podcast.
- Dance – If you are lucky enough to have kids who like to dance, end your days with a garba dance party. Don’t worry if the kids want to disco. Just make sure you use Bhajans to dance to and not Bollywood’s romantic songs.
- Decorate – One of the main attractions of Christmas for our kids is the decoration. So now we go mellow with decorations on Christmas but go all out on Indian festivals. Don’t worry about finding decoration with “right theme”. Just make it colorful. Cinco de Mayo decorations or any other colorful B’day decorations can do the trick.
- Gifts – What’s the biggest selling point of Christmas for kids? Gifts under the tree. In our household children get gifts for every Hindu festival that they actively participate in.
- Quiz Competition – Organize a quiz competition between your kids and their friends or have a kids versus adult quiz competition on a subject like Baal Ramayana or Dashavatar. You can find the material on this blog. Send us a video of the competition you held and we will send you certificate and trophy for the winner and participants.
- Night drive to temple – Most cities these days have a temple. Make a point of going on a night drive to the temple after dinner. If you can interest kids into listening to the bhajans, Great!! If not listen to whatever ….. it doesn’t matter. But make it something that you enjoy as a family together every night for 9 nights.
- Photo Shoot – Organize a photo shoot of the kids in Indian clothes, print those images using Shutterfly or other such services. If you have a daughter she can also dress up as different versions of Devi.
- Art Project – Get artistic and create art on your driveway / stairs / deck or porch with Rangoli colors or even just with colored chalk. You can also use Simply Samvaad’s coloring sheets. Link to the sheets is given at the end of the post. Assign different sections to different members of the family / make 1 huge art piece together as a family / let the kids express their creativity in any way they want with the chalk. Remember, the purpose here is not to beautify the house but to get the kids excited.
- Photo Albums – Regardless of what you do to get your children involved, take lots of pictures and get them printed as an album. Printed albums of festivals celebrated together encourage children to create more and more memories.
Do you have any other ideas? What do you do that’s different and unique to your family? Share your ideas with us.
Activity Tracker for Chaitra Navratri
Click Here to Download Free Coloring Sheets
