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Diwali - Introducing and including toddler in all things festivals !








💥💥 H A P P Y    D I W A L I  !!!! 💥💥

Happy Diwali and prosperous new year!!! Diwali being one of the biggesssttt and brighteesstt festivals we celebrate, it is FULL of traditions and festivities and so much MORE!!


I wanted to introduce a lot of traditions but wanted her to understand what it means by celebrating Diwali. Have her experience how I celebrated Diwali when I grew up in India.

Growing up, it always meant helping mom, doing things around the house, decorating, firecrackers etc. I love the helping your mommy + daddy part! I feel this a great way to involve your toddler and they feel like they did something SO SPECIAL and IMPT.

We started off by getting some earthen diya's and then coloring them with paint. You don't have to be the best painter / artist , we literally colored them in ONE color. But it was great way of introducing her to earthen diya's and talk about what we do.. When we light them at night, she was so happy to see her colored diya's being used..

Simple diya
                                     
After coloring

During the day of Diwali, as a tradition we draw rangoli at the entrance. And so we did! We did a very very basic design - flower, with big petals that the toddler can fill colors in... Obviously, we had spill overs and messy designs. But hey, that the best rangoli, I have ever made.





Diwali is spread over multiple days, "Lakshmi pujan", "Dhanteras" where we do puja(prayers) and so many different things.  We included Toddler S not only in the aartis (devotional songs) but in puja preparations like bathing the idols or offering flowers, etc.  We don't shy from introducing holding aarti thali's with diya's (adult supervision required) and we did that.

                                         




There are a few more, I can think of which we could have done, but there's always next time :-)

Enjoy!

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