For many of us, Christmas or Hanukkah is a favorite time of year. Here’s one way we can make the most of it.

If you have a smartphone or camera, you’ll probably be whipping it out a lot and snapping pictures of the family sitting at the Christmas dinner table, opening presents, singing Christmas carols, or other holiday highlights.

Here’s what you can do with those pictures once Christmas is over and the celebrations have ended.

You could show your child each picture and if she’s nonverbal, you can talk about what she and other family members did at Christmas time. For example, you could show a picture of the Christmas turkey and say, “Here’s the turkey that we ate at our Christmas dinner. It was yummy!”

If she is verbal and can answer questions, you could show her the picture and ask, “What did we eat at the Christmas dinner?” You could show a picture of her opening a present and ask, “What did you get for Christmas?”

Then repeat this process with each picture that you took during Christmas or Hanukkah festivities.

This is a great way to help your child learn to answer questions and to help with conversational skills.

You could even take this a step further if you wish by inserting pictures into a Word document, writing captions under them, and printing the pages to make a book. You can write a book, not only for your child’s Christmas story, but for just about any other event in your child’s life.

If you’d like to know more about making a special book for your child, check out the link at the end of this message.

I hope you have a merry Christmas or happy Hanukkah and a happy New Year!

Warm Regards,


Kay Donato