How to Decorate the Entrance of Your Home for Kwanzaa

Kwanzaa is a holiday that invites family, friends and community to honor the role of African culture in American life. But you don't have to be African-American to celebrate this seven-day festival - or to welcome guests to your home with an entrance decked out in the symbols and colors of Kwanzaa.

Instructions

Difficulty: Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• Silken Cord
• Kwanzaa Guidebooks
• Kwanzaa Decorations
• Wicker Baskets
• Fruits And Vegetables (mazao)
• African Textiles
• Drawing Supplies

1. Display the African-American Unity flag, the bendera ya taifa, which consists of three equal bands of red, green and black - the official colors of Kwanzaa.
2. Let your kuumba (creativity) run riot and devise your own decorating scheme in red, green and black. For example, twine thick, silken cords of red, green and black into braided rope and use it to festoon your doorway or the furnishings in your entrance hall. Or hang them in swags around the door frame and tie them into fat bows around lamps, candlesticks or the corners of tables. You could even tie bows around the necks of your children's stuffed animals, and then gather them into a big wicker basket to be set at your entrance door.
3. Display a collection of African or African-inspired sculpture or ceramics on a table in your entryway.
4. Hang a basket on your door and fill it with mazao - fruits of the harvest, one of the seven symbols of Kwanzaa.
5. Encourage your children to draw pictures representing the Kwanzaa principles and symbols, and then frame the drawings and hang them in your entrance hall.

Tips & Warnings

• Kwanzaa runs from December 26 through January 1 each year. Established in 1966, it's a new kid on the block, as holidays go.
• It's also one of the few holidays - if not the only one - that has ever sprung, full-blown, from the mind of one man. Maulana Karenga, a then brand-new professor of African-American history at California State University, Long Beach, devised it in the aftermath of the Watts riots to put African-Americans back in touch with their African heritage. He laid down very specific guidelines for celebrating Kwanzaa (although he didn't say anything about entrance decorations).
• Like every holiday, this one is constantly evolving. Make it your own and have fun with it.