Hosting the big holidays with young children
Every big holiday has one moment that goes wrong the same way every year — the costume nobody warned about, the food nobody will eat, the countdown a four-year-old cannot stay awake for. Fix the specific moment and the day gets easier.
The holiday is not the problem. One moment in it is.
Nobody dreads Thanksgiving in the abstract. People dread the twenty minutes between the food being ready and the children actually sitting down for it. Nobody dreads Halloween in general — they dread the mask that made a toddler cry at the door two years running.
Each page here answers one of those specific moments, not the holiday as a whole. Find the one that matches what actually goes wrong at your table, and use it.
Every question in this guide
When a toddler is scared of Halloween costumes and decorations
What changed since last year, and how to still have a good night.
What to do with all the Halloween candy afterward
A pacing plan, not a ban.
An alternative to trick-or-treating for a toddler who is not ready
A smaller night is not a lesser one.
Thanksgiving with a child who will not eat anything on the table
What to put in front of them, and what to stop asking.
A kids' table that actually works
The three fixes that make it survive the whole meal.
A Christmas Eve routine for kids who are too excited to sleep
Work with the excitement, not against it.
A New Year's Eve countdown for kids who go to bed early
A real countdown, hours before midnight.
Valentine's Day cards for a preschooler who cannot write yet
Twenty names, one preschooler, no handwriting yet.
An Easter egg hunt that works with a big age gap between kids
Fair to the two-year-old and the seven-year-old at once.
