CARD CONTEST

Meet the winners of our Holiday Card Contest FROM OUR FAMILY TO YOURS

This year, we asked Seattle’s Child readers to send us their ideas for a holiday card photo with our photographer. There were so many inspiring accounts about how families love to spend the winter holidays, truly reflecting the hope and optimism of the season.

A happy, high-energy holiday season

This Brier family has hustle — and lots to do! — this time of year, but still finds a way to be together

by KATIE ANTHONY

You know those families in minivan commercials? That’s the Dalys. Angela, a paraeducator in Edmonds, and Reg, who works at AT&T when he’s not coaching his kids’ soccer teams (Team Extreme and the Ruby Mingos), juggle some wild schedules for their kids. Third-grader Claire does dance and gymnastics; sixth-grader Grace plays volleyball, basketball and trumpet; and seventh-grader Max loves mountain biking, saxophone and flute. And oldest son Sean and Goldendoodle Scotty recently moved to Seattle to be closer to the family.

Yeah, this family’s got hustle.

“Truth be told, I need to get out of the four walls of my house,” says Angela, relatably. “I get ants in my pants.” The Dalys

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photos by JOSHUA HUSTON

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explore the best Christmas lights (a recent favorite: Fantasy Lights at Spanaway Park) and sip hot cocoa while they watch lighted boats glide across Lake Washington.

Closer to home, in Brier, they pop on Santa hats and deliver cookies to their neighbors — also their sometime adversaries. “We had to do a gingerbread house battle with our neighbors,” says Angela. Reg shakes his head about the house. “It was a ginger-fail.”

Grace decorates cookies while Max hits the local sledding hill (when possible), and Claire decides which gift she’ll open on Christmas Eve.

Christmas Day finds Angela, Reg, Sean, Max, Grace, Claire, Grandma and Scotty at home, watching Elf or White Christmas, and eating a ”roast beast” for dinner.

The secret to a perfect Daly Christmas? “Just being together,” says Angela. Adds Reg, “Just being close. That’s what it’s all about.”

New beginnings, new traditions

Two grandmothers are looking ahead to a happy season of new experiences

for their toddler / by MEG BUTTERWORTH

Jo and Valerie admit that they don’t have any holiday traditions… yet. For them, the 2021 holiday season represents an opportunity for new beginnings and new traditions. “We’re starting all over,” says Jo.

Grandmothers to 2-yearold Skai, whom they have been raising since birth, Jo and Valerie can’t wait to introduce her to the magic of the season this year. Not only will she be old enough to be aware of the festivities and even take part in some, but she, Valerie and Jo will be much healthier. In 2020, all three spent the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas recovering from COVID.

“We’ll make a gingerbread house,” says Valerie, who has memories of doing the same with her mother. What else is on their to-do list? Trips to Candy Cane Lane, Swansons to see the reindeer, small family gatherings and just driving around admiring neighborhood lights while sipping on hot chocolate. Both agree Skai will love the lights and the music the most.

“It’s really exciting because she’s only 2, and we get to introduce her to all of the joys of the holiday season. The Christmas spirit. We’re just at the beginning of that,” says Jo.

Originally from New York, Jo and Valerie hope to one day treat Skai to a New York City Christmas, and take her to Rockefeller Center and to admire the window displays at Saks Fifth Avenue. For now, though, they are excited to enjoy this season together. Opportunities await the new family!

They’re blended and blessed

New family celebrates goal-setting, aiming at making the world a better place for all / by ASTRID VINJE

For Jessica and Brandon Castleberry, the holidays represent more than presents and decorations. It’s a time for togetherness and self-reflection for themselves and for their sons, Aidyn and Jaxon Frederico, ages 12 and 8, and Conor Castleberry, age 4.

For the Castleberry/Frederico family, holiday activities like baking cookies and decorating the house offer fun opportunities for them to bond. And for this blended family, that bonding time is a top priority.

“The family is the root,” explains Jessica. “It’s what’s important to us.”

But it’s not just family time that makes the holiday season special for the Edmonds family. The holidays are also their time to reflect on the past year and set goals for the upcoming year.

“We ask ourselves, what does each individual person want to work on for the coming year?” says Jessica.

“We really like to focus the goal-making on something personal, or we focus on something that’s going to help us become more bonded as a family.”

She describes her three kids as “extremely active boys who

all have completely different personalities.”

“My husband and I encourage each one to stand out in their own way,” she says. When Jessica and Brandon wed, Jessica already had two sons of her own. With Conor’s birth, they became a family of five.

Beyond family bonding, the Castleberry/Frederico family also focuses on how to make the world a better place.

“We have a lot of discussion about how things that are going on in the world impact our family,” Jessica says.

And she often stresses to her kids how doing one good thing for one person can create change for a lot more people.

It’s this philosophy of paying it forward that allows the Castleberry/Frederico family to truly embody the spirit of the holidays.

Time-honored celebrations

Combining traditions from Bolivia and Burien, they’re awaiting a fourth family member / by HALLIE GOLDEN

The winter holidays for Loren and Derek Erickson and their 13-month-old daughter, Isabel, have involved incorporating traditions — from as close as Burien to as far as Bolivia.

On Christmas Day the family will don their matching PJs. (Derek has even followed in his uncle’s footsteps and started dressing up as Santa Claus each year.)

But as a first-generation American, Loren has incorporated some of her favorite Bolivian traditions into her growing family’s celebrations. (They’re expecting a baby boy in March.)

“My husband and I grew up in very different backgrounds,” says Loren. “So now as we’ve started our own family, we’ve made a point, not just around the holidays, to pull from all the great things that our families did for us and have incorporated them into our lives.”

Throughout December, she and her husband bake humintas, special corn tamales. For Christmas Eve, they follow the recipe passed down from Loren’s great-great-grandmother for Picana soup — with a twist. They don’t include the meat in their version of the dish, a Christmas Eve tradition in Bolivia.

The Bainbridge Island family wraps up the holiday season by setting out their boots and hay on the night of January 5, and then enjoying the small gifts left for them by Los Reyes Magos (the Three Kings) the following day.

“It’s really special to us to get to incorporate the things that were so meaningful to us as kids, and share them with our kids.”

First tamales, then the slopes!

Texas and Northwest traditions combine for a magical Christmas

/by NILS DAHLGREN

Melinda Wooding grew up in Texas. Christmas traditions in her large Mexican-American family revolved around food and get-togethers. She remembers with fondness the anticipation of the holiday season — and large gatherings in noisy kitchens, with everyone preparing meals together.

Everyone pitched in. “Even the little kids got involved rolling the dough,” Melinda recalls. The highlight was always Christmas Eve: Everyone came together to form an assembly line in order to create the tamales and empanadas to be enjoyed the following day. Pumpkin empanadas with piloncillo (unrefined pure cane sugar) and cinnamon sticks are her favorite.

She met her husband Peter in Idaho, and the couple settled near his family in Seattle.

They are now a family of five and their Christmas traditions have grown alongside their children, Nolan, Lily and Eli. They trek up to Snoqualmie to cut down their own Christmas tree. They invite family friends over for a winter bonfire and treats.

Peter’s contribution to the holiday festivities has been skiing: Everyone hits the slopes on Christmas Day, avoiding long lines at the lifts and enjoying time together. For the Woodings, it’s powder over presents.

Whether they wake up at home or near the slopes on December 25th, Melinda makes sure that tamales and empanadas are still a big part of the day. It’s her way of connecting the kids to their heritage and re-creating a little bit of her Texas childhood right here in the Pacific Northwest.

A creative spin on Hanukkah

This family’s Menorasaurus Rex puts the roar in menorah / by JILLIAN O’CONNOR

What has nine holes, big teeth and looks like it’s about to gobble up all the Hanukkah candles?

If you said the Menorasaurus Rex, you’re correct. For Danielle Price and her husband, Michael, their beloved homemade dinosaur-themed Hanukkah menorah (hanukkiyah) is just one more way they make the eight-day Jewish Festival of Lights fun for their two sons, Binyamin and Dov.

Danielle’s past crafty themes have included “Llamakkah” and “Thanksgivukkah.” In 2021, Hanukkah starts the night of Nov. 28.

According to Dov, the best part of Hanukkah is “spinning the dreidel — and getting all the gelt (chocolate coins)!”

Danielle says that Hanukkah is a minor holiday in the Jewish tradition, but she doesn’t mind adding fanfare, like the shiny dinosaur Hanukkah menorah, if it helps her kids join in on the seasonal fun.

“I know that when I was growing up, Christmas was everywhere and I didn’t always feel like I could participate,” she says. “Hanukkah is a really great way for us to be part of the holiday spirit around us.”

From Seattle’s Child December 2018

Combining old and new customs

They’re celebrating Kwanzaa, winter solstice and Christmas, and focusing on a commitment

to social justice / by KATHERINE HEDLAND HANSEN

Lindsay Hill and Matt Halvorson enjoy family Christmas traditions like decorating the tree and making favorite meals, but they’ve also created new customs around winter solstice and Kwanzaa reflecting their commitment to social justice and creating a strong community for their two sons.

“We’re holding onto the best parts of our own childhood traditions and incorporating new things into the traditions we grew up with,” Lindsay says.

Along with making cookies for Santa, they also incorporate meaningful rituals around their community activism, which they point out runs throughout the year.

Their family also celebrates winter solstice, and a few years ago, they began celebrating Kwanzaa, making a point during the seven-day celebration to talk with their children about its themes, such as collective work and responsibility, unity and self-determination.

“We focus on joy and strength and the power in our community,” Lindsay says. “It feels like a better way to end the year — honoring your family and reflecting on your commitments to making the world a better place and being the best version of yourself in the year ahead.”

From Seattle’s Child December 2017

newport healthcare

Empowering Lives. Restoring Families.

newport healthcare

Empowering Lives. Restoring Families.

FOR TEENS FOR YOUNG ADULTS