| Stone Soup is about creativity. You kids are used to being "asked" in school to write a story, write an essay, write a poem, draw a picture, etc. And, of course your parents, grandparents, and other adults you encounter in your life, including your teachers, when they were kids they were creative, too. They had to be because their grades, like yours, depended upon it. Stone Soup is about moving the motivation to use the arts outside of the school room to record, interpret, and deepen your real-life experiences. While we hope that you kids who read Stone Soup will be inspired to be creative yourselves --- "hey, I can write as well as that" or "hey, I'm a better writer than that" -- we also hope to inspire the adults in your lives to be brave and sit down and write or draw or use their phone to take a photograph that is thoughtful -- an image intended as creative expression, not just a snap, just like you do. So. The December issue was our first food issue. Everyone gets four free articles a month at stonesoup.com, so I hope that all of you have at least looked at your four free articles, and homed in on the food. Nearly 600 of you have received copies of the Stone Soup 2017 Annual. Look at the food issue in December. Now, as food food food is the theme of this school holiday, what I'd like to be able to write about next week is the great work that you kids AND your parents, aunts, uncles, close family friends and grandparents have done to make this 2017 Christmas week a creative one. I'd like you to send me photographs, drawings, paintings, and recipes that are about the holiday. As food is central to most of our holiday and Christmas celebrations I'd expect a lot of the work you do to be centered around food. I think that recipes are a good kind of a project for joint family efforts. Adults and kids can work on recipes that include a headnote -- the story that precedes the recipe -- illustrations for the recipe in the form of photographs, drawings, or paintings, and the recipe itself. When you send me recipes please be sure to note if it is a family project. If you are on a family vacation, then share with us something about that. Again, I'd like you kids to try to get parents and grandparents involved, too. In this case, remember that what is easy for you might be hard for them. As an incentive to the adults in your life -- I would like to be able to feature at least one family- or friendship group-produced creative project in next week's newsletter. OK. The "where to send" details. If you think you have something you'd like to see in an issue at stonesoup.com and then in the 2018 Print Annual, you should submit it to Stone Soup the standard way. I will look at the submissions this week, too. But if you made something that you simply want me to consider as a one-off to share with the Newsletter audience, then send it to me at newsletter@stonesoup.com. Until next week, William | 
The absolutely best opportunity ever. Kathleen and her family will forever cherish this photo of her with her art on the Annual 2017’s cover with its TREASURE of select children’s creativity over the past year.