We may be oh-so-busy wrapping, baking & shopping but there's still time to catch a performance of NJ Ballet’s Nutcracker or snap the kids meeting jolly old Saint Nick at Santa’s Little Elf Workshop. If you’re looking for one-of-a-kind holiday fun, play an instrument at the Touch the Music Nutcracker Workshop or whip up organic Christmas cookies at the Green Gift Workshop. Read on for our top picks and remember you can find a listing of all NJ activities in our Event Calendar.

This year the Jewish holiday Hanukkah (also known as Chanukah or the Festival of Lights) which is an eight day and night celebration began on December 8 and ends on December 16. There are many ways to commemorate with events in the area so set up your menorah or candelabra and observe the holiday with your family at one of the following kid friendly activities.

Some important school news this week as InsideSchools uncovers a big deception in the already complex and stressful high school application process. Plus an update on mandatory kindergarten, a brand-new Battery Park City ice-skating rink, the reopening of the South Street Seaport Museum and class warfare at the toy store.

My 6th Annual Cookie Exchange party is coming up, and if I can manage to finish decorating the house, it should be its usual joyful, twinkly self. Good friends and kids making cookies and cheer and messes, and me being so happy for the love, the friendships and the baked goods. Here are six of my new favorites and check out last year's article for even more buttery goodness. Happy Holidays!

The December holiday season is prime family vacation time, so finding deals can be next to impossible. But Christmas vacation packages do exist and deals can be had. We searched far and wide to find winter vacation deals so you won’t need to break the bank to spend some quality time with the kids on a family getaway. 

Consider alternate Christmas vacation ideas like Colonial Williamsburg and Richmond, Virginia; Lancaster and Bethlehem, Pennsylvania; the bucolic Finger Lakes in upstate New York; Vancouver, Canada; sunny Phoenix, Arizona; or historic San Antonio, Texas.  Read on to get the scoop on these Christmas break packages. 

If you've visited any of the Mommy Poppins sites this week, you probably already know all about our Biggest Holiday Giveaway. And if it's news to you, well, there's still time to enter. We're giving away a different prize every single day through Thursday, December 13, nice big ones like $150 gift cards to some of our favorite stores and high-end toys. See the complete list on our giveaway site.

Speaking of giving, we suspect you're doing a lot of buying these days. Our Shopping Local Holiday Gift Guide is packed with NYC spots selling unique and offbeat items, and this week we added posts about our top seasonal pop-up shops and toy stores that opened over the past year.

Holiday fun is the focus on our regional sites, too. Spectacular light displays are up all over Long Island, New Jersey and Connecticut and make for great day (make that night) trips. (And if you need to stay in NYC, there's always Dyker Heights.) You can find more out-of-town seasonal fun, including cut-your-own Christmas tree farms and Santa train rides, in our New Jersey and Connecticut Holiday Guides.

Here's what else we covered on our NYC site this week:

Hanukkah starts this weekend, and Long Island is in full celebration! You'll find menorah lightings all over town, menorah parades, and parties, parties, parties: There's a Chanukah Wonderland in Merrick, a Chanukah Spectacular in Plainview, and the Hanukkah Happening in Huntington, just to name a few. Check out our guide to the Island's Hanukkah happenings for even more lighting events and celebrations. There are also a few Nutcracker productions this weekend, and the Vienna Boys Choir is performing in Westhampton. What a festive weekend!

As parents, we instinctively want to make things easy on our kids, but making sure they are faced with appropriate challenges is one of the best things we can do for them. Tackling a challenge builds self-esteem and teaches new skills, resilience and perseverance.

This past summer, I organized a challenge-a-day project for my son that turned out to be really great. Not only were the challenges fun, they exposed him to new experiences and helped him learn new skills. By the end, he was doing all kinds of things that he didn't think he was capable of and, by repeatedly tackling challenges, he internalized the idea that he can, in fact, achieve things that seem hard. A challenge-a-day program can also be great for kids with sensory issues, anxiety or other struggles since it allows them to slowly build up tolerance to desired tasks.

If you'd like to try a challenge-a-day project like my family did, here's what you need to know: