Holidays

The Macy's Fourth of July Fireworks are returning to the Hudson River this year in honor of the 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson's discovery of the Hudson River for the Dutch. This change has thrown many people's fireworks viewing plans into chaos. Where do you see fireworks now if you live in Brooklyn, where in Manhattan will you be able to see the fireworks?

Needing to bring order to this chaos, I've sorted rounded up the best places to see the 4th of July fireworks all around New York City:

The July 4th fireworks are on the Hudson River this year, making New Jersey the place to be when the celebration begins at 9:20pm! After all, fireworks don't have a front side and it will be far less crowded on the NJ side of the river. We've also included some fun activities and events for kids happening in New Jersey for the rest of the 4th of July Weekend

Best places to see the 4th of July fireworks from New Jersey:

What to do on Mother's Day is always a little tricky. If you are like me, you may be of two minds about what you really want to do for Mother's Day. On the one hand, perhaps unrealistically, you'd love to spend an idealized day with your family sharing a sense of togetherness with your children who are acting like little angels just to make you happy on your special day. On the other hand, perhaps secretly, what you'd really love is to spend a day alone doing the types of things you enjoy, but have been replaced with kid activities...art, culture, strolling in pretty gardens...

In this post I've gathered up some events that I hope will be a happy compromise; family activities that are a bit more mom-centric, but have room for kids to be real kids. And if the kids don't cooperate...maybe you can send them off with dad.

Yes, your child will most likely come home from school with a Mother's Day gift. Perhaps a ziti collage or a bouquet of paper flowers suspended on pipe cleaners. And you will ooh and ah. And appropriately so. But why leave all the fun to school when you could celebrate Mother's Day as a family, making Mother's Day crafts together (you for your own mom, them for theirs) or Moms could even send dads off with kids to make Mother's Day gifts for a few hours and that would almost be gift enough.

Many kid venues offer Mother's Day gift-making workshops where kids can glue tissue paper flowers together, but we've gathered some unique events where kids of all ages can step the Mother's Day gift-making up a notch, even if Dad has to pitch in a bit.

Sure you could get a piece of dazzling jewelry, but where's the fun in that? Mother's Day is all about paying tribute to the magic of Motherhood, so choose a gift that stands up and salutes to all that is precious, magical and beautiful about moms.

Here's our list of Mother's Day Gift Ideas that will warm moms' heart and give her joy for years to come. 

April 22 is Earth Day, but you don’t have to confine your celebrating to just that one date: This year, many places are scheduling environmentally-themed events throughout the month with lots of great family-friendly activities. Learn about the environment, how to live more greenly, volunteer to green up New York, or just celebrate the Earth and have fun. Here are some suggestions for Earth Day/Month activities to do with the kids in NYC:

Hanami is the Japanese tradition of viewing and cherishing the cherry blossom season. And there's no better place to enjoy the beauty and grace of cherry blossoms than at Brooklyn Botanic Garden, which has more flowering cherry trees in one place than anywhere else in the world outside of Japan! Strolling beneath the stunning, pink canopy of blooms is a wonderful spring tradition the whole family can enjoy and Sakura Matsuri, the two-day cherry blossom festival (May 2 and 3, 2009), has delighted families for over 25 years.

For children, Hanami is a delightful learning experience: watching the seasonal magic of spring as the trees show their first buds, burst into a luscious bloom, and finally send out a flurry of petals that carpet the ground in pink and are replaced on the trees by the tiny green leaves of summer.

To celebrate Hanami, Mommy Poppins is teaming up with Brooklyn Botanic Garden for a great photo contest.

STILL TIME TO ENTER. CONTEST EXTENDED THROUGH MAY 5th!

Enter our Hanami Photo Contest to win an incredible prize package.

This post accidentally got deleted and we are re-posting. Sorry about that.

We recently posted about some terrific Easter Egg Hunts in NYC for kids, but with Spring being in the air, we thought you might be interested in hearing about some of the great Spring Festivals and Easter Egg Hunts out on Long Island that would be worth a day trip. Here are a few of the best:

What's Easter without an outdoor Easter egg hunt? Even NYC kids can enjoy the fun of running through the early spring grasses to hunt for Easter eggs at these locations throughout New York for Easter 2009.

This year, there are fewer Easter Egg Hunts than last year, probably due to budget cuts, so expect the free ones to be even more crowded than usual.If you rather do-it-yourself, you can always bring your own Easter eggs and set up a little private hunt in a quite corner of your local park or do what we did, hide your eggs around the house. If you do an indoor egg hunt I recommend using plastic or blown eggs, cause finding a hard-boiled egg stuck behind a bookcase three years later can be quite aromatic, as I've found out the hard way. 

Over a dozen Easter egg hunts, divided by genre

Even though the St Patrick's Day Parade is NYC's biggest and most popular parade, it's never appealed to me much. Maybe it was the years of working in Mid-Town and seeing the streets littered with plastic beer cups at lunchtime that turned me off. Or the blaring bag pipes and drunken college students might have soured me on it as a kid-friendly event.

But St Patrick's Day is still a great excuse to celebrate Irish culture with some cool events and activities where kids can earn Irish dance steps and music, learn the Irish mother tongue and hunt for leprechauns. Check out some cool St Patrick's Day events and learn about an alternative St. Patrick's Day Parade.