Our favorite celebration foods and traditions give us joy around the holidays and are fun to share. In schools, classroom holiday parties abound with festive crafts and sweet treats. These parties can easily be an opportunity to expose children to good tasting, fun yet healthy treats. Adding nutritious treats to your celebration can help students develop positive attitudes toward healthy food that will carry into adulthood. It can even introduce students to unfamiliar foods they may not try at home.
To make your healthy holiday celebration a success, here are a few tips:
- Focus on positive aspects of your celebration with the invitation—being healthy role models, creating healthier students and better learners, and of course celebrating the holidays!
- Offer a list to parents of healthy foods they can bring.
- Keep it fun! The cute snowmen kabobs pictured here are festive and go great with a tasty apple yogurt dip. Try making vegetable “people” or “animals” with a savory dip like Cucumber Yogurt Dip. Use cookie cutters to make seasonal shapes in cheese slices. Let your creativity run wild.
Holiday parties can be a great way to reinforce nutrition education and to eat better together. Try some of these ideas:
- Explore cultures and have students share their holiday traditions. Get some food ideas in our Celebration of Culture.
- Compete between classes or within your own for the tastiest healthy treat.
- Use a MyPlate image as a placemat to discuss the foods you’re eating and where they come from—this is a great way to reinforce your nutrition lessons!
A few California teachers share their successful party stories below:
- “[After our nutrition lessons] We had a Nutrition Party that included foods from the five food groups…One parent brought in a container of persimmons that were cut up like apple slices. None of the students had tasted persimmons and they loved them.” Carol Cleland, 3rd Grade Teacher, Isador Cohen Elementary in Sacramento
- “We have a culminating celebration where each team is assigned to [one of the five] food groups from which they bring treats to share.” Brenda Lepke, 4th Grade, Hendrick Ranch Elementary in Moreno Valley
- “[For fall] we had an orange party of fruits and vegetables with pumpkin pudding for dessert…For December holidays we have a red and green fruit and vegetable salad bar. The kids are making lists of foods to bring. They are having fun finding unusual foods.” Arlene Milrad, 3rd Grade Teacher, Brentwood Science Magnet School in Los Angeles
Enjoy your celebrations! Share with us healthy traditions from your classroom parties.
Tracy Witmer, R.D.
Territory Manager
Photo and "Snowmen on a Stick" recipe courtesy of familyfun.go.com
Tracy Witmer, Registered Dietitian
About me:
Tracy Witmer is a registered dietitian and Territory Manager for Dairy Council of California. Within the districts and schools of her 10-county territory, she engages teachers to use nutrition education in the classroom and is touched by the testimonies she hears from teachers, parents and students about its impact.
Tracy volunteers her time to serve as the 2011-2012 President of the Northern Area Dietetic Association. She received her B.S. in Nutrition Science with a Minor in Spanish at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo and completed her dietetic internship at CSU Fresno.
As a dietitian, Tracy enjoys dispelling misconceptions about healthy eating and encourages a positive, individual, holistic approach to nutrition. She’s convinced everyone can find ways to eat well and be active, no matter if your day is spent in a school, office, home, car, field or factory. Though she keeps it simple in the kitchen, Tracy’s adventurous spirit is evident in her eating habits. She believes no one should pass an opportunity to try new food when presented with it… at least just a bite.
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