Kwanzaa

A Magical and Meaningful Holiday

By Jennifer Newton Reents

Kwanzaa is a spiritual holiday with no ties to religion. It is celebrated through various rituals including poetry, dancing, singing, music and feasting. A common holiday practice is the lighting of the mishumaa – seven candles – of Kwanzaa. A candle is lit for each day for each of Kwanzaa's seven principles. The principles are called Nguzo Saba. The principles followed during the holiday as well as by many during the rest of the year are, first in English, then in Swahili:

• Unity (Umoja) – to strive for and maintain unity in the family, community, nation and race
• Self-determination (Kujichagulia) – to define oneself, name oneself, create for oneself and speak for oneself
• Collective work and responsibility (Ujima) – to build and maintain community together and take one's problems and make them everyone's problems and to solve them together
• Cooperative economics (Ujamaa) – to build and maintain African-American-owned stores, shops and other businesses and to profit from them together
• Purpose (Nia) – to make a collective vocation of the building and developing of community to restore African-American people to their traditional greatness
• Creativity (Kuumba) – to do always as much as one can, in the way one can, to leave a community more beautiful and beneficial than when they inherited it
• Faith (Imani) – to believe with all heart in the people, parents, teachers, leaders and the righteousness and victory of the African-American struggle

Karenga says the seven principles seek to reaffirm and bring forth the best of what it means to be African and human in the fulest sense.

Want to see more?

• iParenting's Holiday Headquarters
• Holiday Spirit: Helping Your Preteenager Make the Most of the Giving Season
• Transferring Traditions: Passing Down Family Traditions to Your Children
• Talk about it!