2020 was the year of no travel thanks to Covid-19, and so far, 2021 is looking to be more of the same. Thankfully, there is light at the end of the tunnel as vaccines become more readily available. We are staying put until we get ours, but in the meantime, I’m focusing my energy on a fun travel-related project. Each year, I enjoy taking on a new personal project of sorts to keep my creative juices flowing and learn new skills. Over the years, I’ve learned photography, cake decorating, calligraphy and cold process soap making, among other things. I found a great article that explains the benefits of personal projects. The article says “starting a personal project can offer benefits you might never have imagined. (You’ll connect the dots looking backwards.)” This is so true! Photography is a skill I use almost daily and it has enhanced my life in many ways! I’ve documented weddings, birthdays and numerous other happy occasions. It has also given me a different perspective and lens with which to view the world.

Speaking of viewing the world, since there’s not much of that happening these days, I thought it would be fun to put together a monthly travel-related box for my nieces, who are homeschooling this year. This box would serve as a geography and cultural lesson, and would give them something to look forward to each month. In turn, I would learn new things about places I would love to visit someday. Win-win!

Luckily, we live in a fairly culturally-diverse city and there are several local shops and markets that offer goods from Japan, India and beyond. One weekend in late December, I set out in search of some unique goodies for January’s box. I happened to remember that there is a Scandinavian shop, The Wooden Spoon, in downtown Plano that I had not had the opportunity to visit just yet, so I made my way there.

My visit to the shop was such a fun experience! It was like a mini vacation. The shop’s owner, Gwen, gave me a personal tour and even provided some educational materials for my nieces when I told her about the project. The shop is filled with a fantastic variety of food items and gifts from Denmark, Sweden, Iceland, Norway, and Finland. Gwen has even written some children’s books, so I made sure to pick up a few of those for the boxes. It was difficult to choose from all of the fun Nordic locations, but I finally decided to focus on Sweden for January.

January’s box was filled with Swedish activity books, flag stickers and edible treats. I also included a couple of assignments, including instructions for making Swedish meatballs.

I wanted to give them a record of their “travels” for the year, so I was able to locate some mini passports that even have pages for stamps! I’m planning to include some stamps for each country, and to make these “trips” feel as realistic as possible, I even designed some airline boarding passes.

Here’s a look at what I included for January: