Holi!!!

Holi, the festival of colors, is just around the corner. It used to be(and still is) my favorite festival but since we left India, there were times we came to know about it only after it passed or we celebrated it by just a mere visit to the temple. But with kids, it's my worry, that being so far away from our country, it gets more difficult for them to learn and understand their culture. We now try to celebrate some of our festivals with  our friends and most importantly, with children's friends, as I think the easiest way to teach our children about our festivals is to involve the people they hang out with, as well in the celebration.

We made it a point to celebrate it last year, and for this year, we plan to do the same. I didn't get around to posting then, but here it is now. We set the park as a venue, and invited almost all our friends. Once the invitations were out,  it was time to get tons of gulaal (color powder). With many kids invited, and with all the news on the chemicals mixed in the holi colors, I decided to take up the task of making my own colors. It turned out to be a very simple and reasonably cheap project.

I ordered a big box of mixed Tempera non toxic paint powder(Colorations brand) from amazon. To prepare the color powder, I mixed paint powder in equal quantity of corn starch powder. I got this idea from Cute As a Fox blog. A food processor can be used for the mixing. I mixed one color using this. But for the rest, I opted to mix with hand.

For the kids to play with colors, I used the colorations bottles with 2 holes drilled on the top. I also laid disposable bowls filled with colors for adults.

There was lots of food, as some of our friends pitched in and brought Indian food. I forgot to take a picture of all the food. And ofcourse, there was Thandai(minus the bhaang/alcohol). What would a Holi be without thandai.

How could I not bake something for the kids.. I made these colorful sponge cupcakes. Ofcourse I iced these, but no picture of it. There were too many happy kids to take picture of, rather than the food.

 Happy Holi!