Thanksgivukkah

Looks like we need to prepare our stomachs — Thanksgiving and Hanukkah are a day apart this year! I am so excited to kick off the holiday season with two of my absolute favorite and most personally meaningful holidays. Hanukkah and Thanksgiving are both such warm, family-oriented holidays that happen to also involve the BEST possible food! The traditions that I have with my family are special to me, and are what make the holidays unique and FabULyss for me and those closest to me. I would love to share with you what my family and I love to do on these two very special holidays.

This holiday will not happen for another 70,000 years, so they say. So celebrate, with Manischewitz-brined turkey; a cornucopia of gelt; pecan pie rugalach; potato pancakes with cranberry sauce; and lots more DeLysscious holiday treats.

Some of my family’s favorite Thanksgiving traditions are:

A big breakfast, and then head over to watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade here in Manhattan. My boys love seeing the new floats every year.

After the Thanksgiving meal, everyone writes down on a piece of paper something he is thankful for. The slips of paper are folded up and placed in a pretty basket. We then draw each piece of paper out, read it aloud, and try to guess who wrote it. (The kids used to draw pictures before they could write.)

My sister is the best cook in the world. Every year she prepares the Thanksgiving feast for two days prior in my apartment.

My boys love being her sous chefs. When things are settled in the kitchen, we watch “Willy Wonka And The Chocolate Factory.”

Some of my family’s Hanukkah traditions are:

We always play dreidel the first night of Hanukkah, and whoever wins gets to light the first candle of the menorah.

We always have the most De-Lysscious jelly doughnuts for Hanukkah in our apartment, and of course, yummy latkes. We try and have one or two each night of Hanukkah.

We always listen to Adam Sandler’s “The Chanukah Song” on the first night of Hanukkah as we open the first night of gifts.

I hope you enjoyed your sneak peek into the holidays at the Stern house; sharing these traditions made me doubly excited for the upcoming holiday season.

I hope that every DivaMom has a meaningful holiday season, and remembers that memories and traditions are absolutely everything; they are what bind a family together for generations and are what your DivaTots will pass onto their children one day. Enjoy the family, friends, fun, and, of course, the food this season!

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A multilingual, multidisciplinary Therapeutic Center for Children and Adults. We are dedicated to serving adults, teens, and children with communication, cognitive, and physical challenges. We provide Speech, Occupational and Physical Therapies.

Enabling Devices

Enabling Devices is a family-run business that designs, manufactures and sells adapted toys and accessible devices that make life more joyful and fulfilling for children and adults living with disabilities. &nbsp; It started with a train set, a mercury switch, and a young boy whose therapist thought he couldn&rsquo;t play with toys. In 1975 our founder, Dr. Steven Kanor, walked into a room at United Cerebral Palsy/Long Island and saw a boy sitting in a wheelchair, his head resting on his shoulder. When he asked where the toys were, the OT said, &ldquo;He doesn&rsquo;t have the motor skills to play with toys, and he can&rsquo;t lift his head.&rdquo; But Dr. Kanor was not interested in what the boy couldn&rsquo;t do. He was interested in the boy's potential. The next morning, he was back. He&rsquo;d brought a train set, which he&rsquo;d connected to a mercury switch. The switch, the first capability switch he&rsquo;d designed, was attached to the boy&rsquo;s ear. When the boy raised his head, the switch made contact and the train ran around the tracks. After several weeks of playing with this toy, the boy was holding his head up straight, even when the train was not running. Dr. Kanor was elated. Since that day, he never stopped innovating, never stopped trying to make our products better, never stopped designing new devices. Today, our design team is just as passionate, just as creative, and just as committed to innovation as the man who founded this company. Enabling Devices is the place to find toys, devices and tools that help build more joyful, fulfilling lives. We have an extensive selection of adapted toys, capability switches, Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) devices, adapted electronics, mounts, iPad products, sensory items and products for the visually impaired. Over the years, the important constants remain. We&rsquo;re still the same small, family-run company Steven Kanor founded in 1978, with the same values of personal connection and deep product knowledge. We&rsquo;re still committed to providing caring, individualized service to each customer. And we&rsquo;re still grateful for the privilege of sharing in your journey.

FlexSchool

Our mission is to provide an engaging&nbsp;learning experience in a supportive environment where students are free to explore their&nbsp;passions, embrace their challenges and find a community of teachers and friends who&nbsp;understand and accept them as they are. Academics: To meet the unique needs of gifted and 2e learners &ndash; students who may have co-occurring&nbsp;learning challenges along with their gifts &ndash; we provide a gifted-level curriculum with built-in&nbsp;scaffolding, developed by credentialed experts in both gifted education and special education,&nbsp;as well as subject-area experts. Small, discussion-based classes ensure our students can&nbsp;engage in stimulating conversation with intellectual peers while receiving individualized attention&nbsp;and support. Talent Development and Experiential Learning: Central to our program is our strengths-based, interest-based approach to learning. All&nbsp;FlexSchool students pursue personal passion projects and choose from a diverse menu of&nbsp;enrichment activities and electives designed to support exploration and talent development. Our&nbsp;signature FlexFriday experiential learning program provides essential connections between&nbsp;classroom learning and the real world. Executive Functioning and Learning Support: All FlexSchool students have access to an extensive range of accommodations, including&nbsp;breaks as needed, daily executive functioning support, flexible seating, extended time, assistive&nbsp;technology and more. Learning Specialist support is available on every FlexSchool campus. Social-Emotional Learning and School Counseling: Our caring team of certified school counselors, under the guidance of a consulting psychologist,&nbsp;provide robust social-emotional learning and social pragmatics programming. Students are&nbsp;welcome to visit the school counselor at any time &ndash; no appointment necessary. FlexSchool&nbsp;counselors also maintain a collaborative relationship with parents and outside providers. Rolling admissions: We understand that student needs don&rsquo;t always neatly align with the academic calendar, so&nbsp;FlexSchool admits students on a rolling basis. To learn more, join FlexSchool founder Jacqui&nbsp;Byrne live via Zoom for a Virtual Open House. To receive a call from our admissions team,&nbsp;inquire online, email us at [email protected] or call 908-279-0787.