As we head into the month of November it is important to take note of all of our blessings both big and small. We look forward to Thanksgiving as a time of reflection, gratitude, and rejoicing before we dive into the busy nature of the Christmas season.

And yet, weeks before the grand Thanksgiving feast takes place, we pause for a day of gratitude for our service men and women. Like Thanksgiving, Veteran’s Day is a fixed holiday that takes place every November, without fail. Unfortunately, unlike Thanksgiving, Veteran’s Day is often misunderstood, misconstrued, and under-celebrated. Here at Superior Celebrations, we aim to fix this oversight with some simple and tangible ways to instill actual gratitude for every Veteran’s Day.

Veteran’s Day is often confused with Memorial Day. It’s an honest mistake since both holidays honor servicemen and women. However, while Memorial Day is a holiday to remember those who gave their lives in service to our country, Veteran’s Day is meant to honor all who have served in the military. This is important because while Memorial Day reminds us of those who are missing, Veteran’s Day urges us to notice the ones who are still here. We have the chance to pause, reflect, and thank the men and women who put their lives on the line for us daily.

You might be wondering how to properly celebrate Veteran’s Day. This holiday is so much more than just a day off from work or school. Check out how you can give back to our veterans this Veteran’s Day.

How to Give Back this Veteran’s Day

Read

First and foremost, educate yourself and your family about Veteran’s Day. While we all might know a few people who have spent time in the military, we do not all understand what these men and women have been through while serving our country. One of the biggest ways you can honor veterans is by listening to their unique perspectives on events that most of us just see through the news. We Are The Mighty put together a great list titled: The 14 Best Military Non-Fiction of All Time. Give it a look-through, and commit to read at least one book for this month.

When it comes to teaching your kids about Veteran’s Day, you can’t go wrong with some good reading. While you might not feel equipped to explain in detail why or how we celebrate Veteran’s Day with your kids, there are plenty of other people who can. In fact, plenty of authors and illustrators have paved the way for you to educate your children about this national holiday. Not sure which book to read? Check out this list to get you started.

Write

Did you know that there are approximately 23.2 million veterans living in the United States today? That’s a lot of people who would love to hear your appreciation. Who doesn’t love snail mail? Veteran’s Day is the perfect excuse to pick up some snazzy cards or stationary and practice the art of letter writing.

You can easily start your correspondence with the servicemen and women you personally know or are somehow connected to. If you don’t already know a veteran, there are still opportunities to get involved and connect with veterans.

If you are looking for a resource to connect you with veterans, Operation Gratitude is a great place to start. They lead some fantastic campaigns to enrich the lives of our servicemen and women. If you want to go above and beyond letter writing, they also offer care packages for veterans. This is such a fun and meaningful way to bless the lives of people you aren’t able to see face-to-face. Take a minute to look over how you can send a care package to a veteran.

Source: Operation Gratitude

Finally, Operation Gratitude also leads a post-Halloween campaign in donating candy to the troops. While your kids might not be thrilled at parting with their precious sweets, you can encourage them to share by teaching them about Veteran’s Day. They are much more apt to share once they have emotionally connected the concept of “veteran” with “person I’m writing to.” Sending candy to the troops is a really easy way to get your community involved in Veteran’s Day. There is still time to donate so make sure you check out the program form to see if this is a fit for you.

Give

Another way to celebrate Veteran’s Day is to give your time. Where? Anywhere that is committed to helping and serving veterans. You can visit a VA hospital and spend time with wounded soldiers and elderly veterans receiving health care. Bring them a card, flowers, or even a balloon and tell them how thankful you are for their service.

Source: KVAL News, Veteran’s Day 2015

Another way to give your time is by participating in the Veteran’s History Project. Birthed from the Library of Congress, the Veteran’s History Project helps to document and preserve the stories of our veterans. You can partner with a veteran to help tell their story. Check out how you can prepare for your interview and send in your story right here.

You can also give your time by just showing up to Veteran’s Day events. Is there a parade in your town? Go. A special picnic or BBQ for veterans? Attend. Find out what is already happening in your community and decide to take an active role in celebrating veterans.

We hope this post inspires in you a desire to give back this Veteran’s Day. Join us in celebrating our veterans in a way that blesses their lives long after the holiday weekend.

Besides candy, haunted houses are the best part of Halloween. Now, I know some would argue that the “dressing up” is the most exciting component of Halloween, but as a mom, I beg to differ. Costumes are almost more stressful than putting together birthday parties. If you have never been on the receiving end of a child vacillating between four million character costumes for Halloween, well then, you haven’t really lived through a nightmare.

As a culture, we delight in pranks, and haunted houses are pretty much just a series of pranks with the victim’s consent. We know what we’re getting into when we buy a ticket for a haunted house. In fact, we want to be scared. The psychology behind all this begs for investigation, but this is not the place to do it. Nope. Today we are celebrating a fun, creepy, and slightly whimsical haunted house. A Harry Potter inspired haunted house.

Introducing:

The Osprey School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

“Wait, don’t you mean Hogwarts school of…”

No. It’s Osprey, you know, like the bird that hunts fish and uses stealth-like tactics to snare them.

The Osprey School of Witchcraft and Wizardry is an elementary branch of Hogwarts. Here students learn spells, practice herbology, and discover just what is inside the “Chamber of Secrets.” This haunted house is particularly dear to my heart because it was part of an annual Halloween fundraiser at my kids’ school. Superior Celebrations provided some great assets in the way of LED ice-cubes and glow necklaces! Now sit back and enjoy your tour.

Students entered by way of the library and passed through the herbology lab to visit the Screaming Mandrakes.

Assembling mandrakes is not for the faint of heart. It involves dismembering baby dolls, mummifying said dolls, and finally shoving plastic ferns through their skulls. I wouldn’t advise you let your children help with this particular task.

Our glow necklaces were arranged around the mandrakes for additional effect.

The potion table was quite the showstopper with some of our favorite products playing the supporting role.

With repurposed wine bottles and creepy labels, we filled our potion bottles with glow necklaces.

The LED ice cubes were absolutely PERFECT for the larger apothecary jars. We set some of them to color-changing mode and this gave the appearance of movement. The kids were totally enthralled by the affect!

Another favorite feature was the fireplace full of flying letters. Each letter was addressed to Master Harry Potter, complete with the Osprey seal. We laced them through fishing line and hung them all the way to the ceiling. A hidden fan was positioned to make the letters look as if they were blowing right out of the fireplace. Raise your hand if you love that scene from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.

As you can see, the quaint witch looks slightly more menacing in the dark. Muahahah.

Round the corner students were met with an angry Professor Lupin. For those of you non-Potter nerds, Remus Lupin taught defense against the dark arts. Unfortunately, Lupin was also a werewolf.

There was no DIY’ing this bad boy. This life-size werewolf (if werewolves existed in real life, that is) was a horrific surprise after our sweet little fireplace stop. Motion-activated, “Professor Lupin” would growl and rattle his cage in anger. This is not a thing you want hanging inside your house. Trust me.

*shudder*

Another stopping point was the wall of ancestors. As you can see there is one thing here that’s not like the other things.

Several volunteers enjoyed posing beneath Dumbledore and spooking people as they walked on by. This was my favorite part of “volunteering.”

No school of witchcraft and wizardry is complete without a wizard’s table. Here we had a smoking cauldron, skulls, and wizard’s tome. One of our teachers acted as a crazy wizard pointing children towards the exit.

Our exit paid tribute to Harry Potter with a montage of scenes projected onto the wall. Seeing Harry, Ron, and Hermione at the end was a fun way for students to say farewell to our haunted house.

We hope you enjoyed the tour of Osprey’s School of Witchcraft and Wizardry! And remember, no matter how you choose to celebrate–have a safe and fun-filled Halloween!

We want to pause all the Halloween chatter for a bit and focus on another upcoming holiday: Diwali 2016. On October 30, Diwali begins. Diwali is a five-day celebration that is best known as “the festival of lights.” Naturally, we’re all over this one.

A Hindu holiday, Diwali is also celebrated by Sikhs, Jains, and countless other people across the globe. Diwali comes from the Sanskrit words deepa and avail and literally means “row of lights.”  Diwali’s origins are found throughout many Hindu stories and legends. The most famous legend is the victory of Lord Rama over the demon king Ravana. After a 14-year exile, Lord Rama is welcomed home to a city full of lights, gifts, and delicious foods. It is a story of goodness winning over evil and a terrific after party.

There are different stories and traditions tied to each day of Diwali, but the predominant motif is always light. For example, a fundamental ornament for Diwali are the countless diyas–clay oil lamps–that are set in every nook and cranny of Diwali homes. Homes are cleaned fastidiously, and sometimes even white-washed before setting out the diyas. The light from the diyas illuminate the good and “pure” aspects of Diwali.

Source: IndiPepper

The joy of good triumphing over evil is also depicted in Rangoli designs. Rangoli is an art form that involves intricate patterns using colored rice powder, sand, and flowers. Rangoli patterns bedeck walkways, floors, and even streets during the Diwali festival.  As you can imagine, Diwali is an incredibly colorful and eye-dazzling celebration.

Source: Indian Express

As Diwali is about to be celebrated all around the globe, we are excited to provide for the Diwali celebrations happening across the United States. We are anticipating a great deal of Diwali activity here in the U.S. and we are so excited to be a part of it all.

Here are some of our favorite Diwali products:

Lakshmi’s Lanterns

Sky Lanterns are one of the most beautiful ways to celebrate Diwali. Released in the night sky, lanterns represent abundance, wealth, and good fortune. They are used in Diwali to pay tribute to Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth and prosperity.

Source: Express.co

Our Sky Lanterns are bigger than the ones pictured above. Measuring at 39″ tall. and 24″ in diameter, these lanterns are made with fire-retardant, 100% biodegradable material. When celebrating Diwali, the more lanterns the merrier! A full case includes 36 lanterns, so plan accordingly.

Diwali Sparklers

Firework shows and sparklers are absolutely essential to Diwali celebrations. In the same way that sky lanterns represent wealth and abundance, fireworks capture the joy of Rama’s homecoming and the excitement for the future. A proper Diwali festival will be complete with a full fireworks show and sparklers for every person in attendance.

Our 10″ Color Sparklers are a great asset to any Diwali celebration. They come in red, gold, and green and there are four boxes of each color. A total of 96 sparklers for just $7.52, these sparklers are an affordable option for Diwali festivities. They give off a torch-like effect that’s perfect for a colorful celebration.

Fluorescent Sparkler/Torches are another great sparkler option.  These 17″ sparklers burst with green, red, and orange fluorescent light and sparkling gold. With proper supervision, these are sure to be a favorite amongst children. $1.47 for a 4 pack makes this product a no-brainer to add to your Diwali  fun.

Finally, our 10″ Gold Sparklers are a beautiful addition to add to your night! Made with wire cores instead of bamboo wood, Gold Sparklers burn clean and without much smoke. For $6.93 they come as 12 small boxes of 8 sparklers, for a total of 96 sparklers.

Which sparkler is right for your Diwali 2016? Easy–all of them!

Source: Farhan Khan

In the spirit of Diwali we hope you enjoy a time of light, love, and laughter with your friends and family. Diwali begins in the home with the lighting of diyas and, after fireworks/sparkler shows, it ends in the home with gifts and sweets shared among friends.

Happy Diwali, everyone!

Source: Akram Ali

It’s the most wonderful time of the year! Here at Superior Celebrations we celebrate Halloween with as much gusto as Christmas. It’s a holiday that we have covered on all fronts, and we want to share some of our favorite products with you. So get out your shopping list, and start planning your Halloween festivities.

Jack-O-Lantern Supplies

Pumpkin season really kicks off whenever Starbucks releases the highly-sought-after Pumpkin Spice Latte. Call it coincidence, but once the PSL is on the menu we are bombarded with everything pumpkin. Beyond the delicious food, drinks, and smells that come from pumpkins, we love them for the festive decor they provide.

What Halloween is complete without some pumpkin carving? Whether you choose to traipse through a crunchy field or simply stroll through your local grocery store, we urge you to secure a pumpkin and plan your carving. There are plenty of templates out there for pumpkin carving, and depending on your skill-set you can pretty much depict anything on a pumpkin canvas. For those who like the classic and simple approach, Reader’s Digest has put together a great collection of free templates you can choose from.

While planning your pumpkin carving it’s important to think about how you will light it. We are partial to our LED ice cubes and glow sticks for lighting your jack-o-lantern. The LED ice cubes are fun because they have six different modes to choose from. You can select from red, green, blue, purple, white, and color-changing. Obviously each color will change the effect of your jack-o-lantern in fun and unique ways. Our ice cubes are small, but mighty and really deliver with light!

Our glow sticks measure at six inches long, and are a great option for lighting medium to large pumpkins. Green or yellow are the colors for our classic Halloween glow sticks, but there are more options in our Animal Print Glow Sticks.

Trick or Treat Swag

If you have kids, you know that trick-or-treating ranks right up there with Christmas morning. There is nothing more delightful than dashing through the neighborhood collecting candy. Just watch a few Jimmy Kimmel pranks of parents taking Halloween candy—trick-or-treating is serious business.

You can keep track of your little witches and warlocks with our glow stick lanyards. Another idea is to use our glow bracelets and necklaces for a larger group of trick-or-treaters. Loop the bracelets around your stroller and transform it into a parade-worthy float.

Our glow products also make great alternatives to passing out candy. Glow items are popular for both parents and kids. With our BOGO sale going on right now, you can purchase a large quantity of glow products at a very affordable price.

Halloween Party Magic

Are you planning a spectacular Halloween party? While there are plenty of spooky products to purchase from Target and Walmart, we have a couple of products that are particularly unique. We know you’ll want to light your pumpkins with our LED ice cubes, but we would be remiss if we didn’t mention how beautifully they light up a drink. Place in a punch bowl or in individual glasses to add more that extra touch to your party.

Lastly, we have a great way to close out your party. Our Halloween sky lanterns are the perfect way to wow your guests and fill the night sky with color. Our sky lanterns are made with fire-retardant material and are 100% biodegradable.

So yes, they are both beautiful and safe. They measure 36” tall, 16” in diameter at the base of the lantern, and 23” in diameter at the top of the lantern. Seeing these beauties in action will make your event memorable for years to come.

We are almost half-way through the month and there is still plenty of time to prepare for Halloween. Make sure you check out our Halloween page and take advantage of our great BOGO glow sale. When you use our products for your Halloween festivities please be sure to share photos as we love seeing our happy customers 🙂 Have another way to use our favorite products? We’d love to hear your ideas!