[jaenelle]

For those of you who have African-American (or African) children, what are your Kwanzaa plans? I plan to do some sort of celebration but I need to learn more about it and see what we should do.

So, what are YOU doing for Kwanzaa?

[teranga]

Honestly I'm not going to celebrate it. I have a bunch of AA friends, and none of them celebrate it either!

Teranga

mom of 3--2 bio, 1 adopted from Ethiopia

[bluedaisy]

We won't be celebrating Kwanzaa. Our son is from Ethiopia, and we will look to honor Timket, the Epiphany, in early January, which is a hugely important holiday in Ethiopia.

[Wisdom]

I am African American and I, my family , nor any of my AA friends celebrate Kwanza. (I don't know that it is as widely celebrated as books or tv make it out to be.) I think the best thing that non AA people who are raising AA kids can do is include other AA people in your circle of friends. I saw a DVD recently of adult AA kids who'd been raised by CC families, and the primary complaint of the AA children was not being connected with people of their race growing up (through church, school, community, etc). It was a very interesting film. I'm not saying Kwanza isn't a good thing to do, but it's not necessarily something that all AA people do.

[loveajax]

Jaenelle, no AA person I know celebrates Kwanzaa either. Is there some reason to think, e.g., that if your DD had been raised by birth mom that she would celebrate it (in that case, I may think about celbrating it)?

I think Noalis has great advice....

[joskimo]

We do celebrate Kwanzaa. I heard the same arguements here last year, but it was fun for us, not a perfect celebration to be sure, but we'll get it down by the time she's old enough to participate. We are a tri-racial family, so we try to make it inclusive, really it's a celebration of family and community, what can be wrong with that? And I think, even if we didn't do it well, that our heart is in the right place in trying to bring whatever we can of our daughter's culture to her home.