By 
One special thing for me every year is the fact that I celebrate both Hanukkah and Christmas. Yes, you heard that right, I do both. I grew up celebrating both and intend on keeping it that way with the same traditions. For me, the holidays might have come from different places, but I think they both have a good amount in common. The time we spend with our loved ones, the gifts we give and receive, the help we provide others, are all all a part of both Hanukkah an Christmas. The time leading up to the celebration is also very fun and exciting, this is probably my favorite time, the excitement over something new and the remembering of the old. That is what I like to focus on and obviously this is not how everyone sees it but for the sake of sharing the good stuff, I wanted to offer some insight into how I mold the two traditions together. This year I decided we would have a little joint dinner with all the delicious parts of both holidays at the beach. So we rode our bikes down around 3:30pm and hit the perfect timing for light at the beach to both shoot and devour our glorious spread. That is probably the second best element to doing these shoots, enjoying the treats after grabbing some great content and seeing how nicely it all comes together.
So how does one blend two distinct holidays into one? I have always seen this as the opportunity to take the best of both and make it my own. Ever since being a small kid I have always been inspired by the idea of making the holidays a creative experience for myself, and this year was no different. My favorite new addition to all my future Hanukkah celebrations is the grilled cheese latkes my genius fiancé found and made for us. How amazing is this??? It was so delicious dipped in sour cream and now I don’t think I will be able to eat a latke without cheese ever again. I also really enjoyed using these adorable little trees on top of my cookies staked with cream cheese frosting (I tried to make it into a mini cake but failed miserably). And in addition to the little trees you can also use an ornament, as I did after having no luck finding a mini gingerbread house. All of the recipes here are fairly simple, although I can’t attest to having done any of them myself. However, I did make the Hanukkah gelt, which only involved melting the chocolate in the microwave and freezing it into a mold, but hey it’s a step in the right direction right? The gold dust was extremely fun to brush onto after and would be a super cute activity to do with kids considering how much fun I had myself. In addition to linking all the recipes, I also linked the decor items we used as well. My biggest suggestion for any beach picnic is to bring some type of flat surface, like a tray so that you can balance drinks on. Enjoy!
So how does one blend two distinct holidays into one? I have always seen this as the opportunity to take the best of both and make it my own. Ever since being a small kid I have always been inspired by the idea of making the holidays a creative experience for myself, and this year was no different. My favorite new addition to all my future Hanukkah celebrations is the grilled cheese latkes my genius fiancé found and made for us. How amazing is this??? It was so delicious dipped in sour cream and now I don’t think I will be able to eat a latke without cheese ever again. I also really enjoyed using these adorable little trees on top of my cookies staked with cream cheese frosting (I tried to make it into a mini cake but failed miserably). And in addition to the little trees you can also use an ornament, as I did after having no luck finding a mini gingerbread house. All of the recipes here are fairly simple, although I can’t attest to having done any of them myself. However, I did make the Hanukkah gelt, which only involved melting the chocolate in the microwave and freezing it into a mold, but hey it’s a step in the right direction right? The gold dust was extremely fun to brush onto after and would be a super cute activity to do with kids considering how much fun I had myself. In addition to linking all the recipes, I also linked the decor items we used as well. My biggest suggestion for any beach picnic is to bring some type of flat surface, like a tray so that you can balance drinks on. Enjoy!
FOOD AND TREATS:
cheese plate (brie, prosciutto, blueberries, aged gouda, fig spread, blue cheese, cranberry crisps, rosemary to garnish)
chocolate cookies and cheesecake frosting (ornament and cinnamon sticks to garnish)
DECOR:
-MGN
Authentically,
