Secret Subject Swap - Holiday

Welcome to November's Secret Subject Swap. 

Again four brave bloggers picked a secret subject for someone else and were assigned a secret subject to interpret in their own style. Today we are all simultaneously divulging our topics and submitting our posts.

Here are links to all the sites now featuring Secret Subject Swap posts.  

Sit back, grab a cup and check them all out:

Baking In A Tornado
The Diary of an Alzheimer Caregiver
Climaxed
Part-Time Working Hockey Mom

My subject is 

You can choose one major holiday over the next few months where you will be the host, and another where you will just be a guest. Which holiday will you choose to host, and which holiday would you prefer not to host?

It was submitted by: Baking In A Tornado - thank you, Karen! 

Yay for being invited to a party I don't have to sweat for! Let's start with a holiday I would like to attend.

Hanukkah!

Here are my reasons:

First of all I got this prompt from Karen, so I'm hoping to join her family from December 18 on ;-)

My Mom's family is of Jewish descent. However, my Grandparents have not actively practiced the faith. This means I am not super familiar with how things go down. I know about lighting one more candle on the menorah every night, singing hymns, reading scriptures and playing the dreidel. I'm sure there is much more to it, and every family probably has their own traditions. 

Eight days and eight nights - that's a lot of celebrating! 

Lastly, I am curious about the food. I'm sure I would enjoy latkes, challah, rugelach and jelly doughnuts. What else is there? 

So in return, what holiday will I host? And it's only right to invite Karen, of course. It's hard to top such a long holiday. But wait, I did something many years ago when we first met: I made an advent calendar for her because she was not familiar with it. Actually I didn't do it alone, I secretly recruited 23 other bloggers who contributed a special post every day, starting December 1st. Check it out here.

This is ancient history though, I need to come up with something else. After clarifying how far out "over the next few months" means, I am going for 

St. Patrick's Day, 

my personal favorite. 

What can I offer? How about a Guinness cake? You heard correctly, there is Irish dry stout in this chocolate cake. 

Donal Skehan is my go-to chef when it comes to Irish food. If you don't know him, check out his YouTube channel. 

I am also fully equipped where decoration comes in. 

Every year, five sneaky little leprechauns check into our home and are up to a lot of mischief. 

Like the time when they sent the kids on a treasure hunt, and all they found in the hidden box was this: healthy, green foods. They were not amused! Read the full story here.

Speaking of leprechauns. The "real" ones love to pull prank on us.

One of the most popular ones was the green water we ended up using to boil pasta.

What else does my kitchen produce? Shamrock shaped pizza. Yes, we like pineapple on our pizza, shoot me ;-)

   

Don't you just love how colorful everything can be arranged?

So Karen (and other readers) how aobut this Holiday Swap? 

Let me know below and don't forget to visit my fellow bloggers' posts.