Celebrating History at Home

Pursuant to my previous post on local inauguration celebrations, here are some ideas for celebrating history at home with your family, excerpted from the energetic and ever informative Andrea Astrachan of Stop & Shop. These ideas would do well implemented not just today but through the remainder of the week or month. I know I could use the history refresher (last bullet point):

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From Andrea:

Start the day with patriotic pancakes or waffles, served up with whipped cream, strawberries, and blueberries.

Surprise the kids with a patriotic lunchbox snack. I’m sending my kids to school with cups of low-fat vanilla yogurt and stir-in mixers like strawberries and blueberries to make a healthy red, white, and blue treat.

Record the presidential inaugural parade and swearing in ceremony so the family can watch it together.

Make one of the Obama's favorite foods – chili – together as a family.

Make deep-dish pizzas (and let kids pick their own toppings!) in honor of the Obama's home city of Chicago.

Obama worked in an ice cream shop as a teenager, so serve ice cream or frozen yogurt for dessert.

At dinner discuss how Malia and Sasha Obama's lives will be different and fun in the White House.

Play one of Obama's favorite family board games - Scrabble!

Assign everyone in the family a past president who they research and teach the rest of the family about.

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Check out the White House’s president’s page for presidential quick facts. The White House also hosts a page for kids. [Editor's Note: The kids page was removed when the new White House website went live following the inauguration; I'll reinstate this link if the page comes back into existence.]

And if you like getting crazy in the kitchen, make a batch of Obama cupcakes (shown). Inspired by Obama's logo, I created these cupcakes for an election party we attended and they were a huge hit. Simply make your favorite cupcake and vanilla frosting recipe, and make extra frosting so you don’t need to worry about running out as you split the frosting for the different colors. I recommend using three pastry bags and piping tips (easier than washing out and drying one bag) and also having on hand an extra tube each of red and blue food coloring or gel since it takes a good amount of food coloring to achieve a true red and blue.