Teaching the True Meaning of Christmas

My mommy group recently had an awesome discussion on the message board about how to teach kids the real meaning of Christmas.  I liked the ideas so much, I'm copying them here so I can use them now and in the future!

1. We give a gift to Jesus on Christmas Eve- a special tithe to church.  Even the kids can get some money from their piggy bank to contribute.

2. We bought the "What God Wants for Christmas" set at Lifeway, it is a cute way to teach kids the true meaning of Christmas through a nativity set.

3. I know this sounds corny, but we sing Happy Birthday to Jesus on Christmas Day.  I think you can even buy plates, napkins that say happy birthday Jesus online.

4. On Christmas Eve we read the Christmas Story from the Bible (It's in Matthew)

5. We try to teach our kids the importance of giving rather than just receiving so we usually do some type of toy donation. This year we are doing Operation Christmas Child and are adopting a family. She goes with us to pick the presents, helps wrap them and then we deliver them.

6. We do clothes/toy cleanouts pretty often and give to kids who many not be as fortunate.

7.  We participate in the "toys for tots" program.  The kids come and are part of the process, from selecting a toy to wrapping and delivering it. 

8.  One disipline I impose for myself is, I only get the kids 3 gifts to represent the three gifts the wisemen gave to Jesus. 

9.  The Christmas train in Alvin was a neat train ride of the Christmas story (if you're local to League City, TX). 

10.  Before we set up ANY decorations at all we find our manager scene and read the Christmas story and put the manager scene up and then say a prayer together as a family.

11.  Because my husband grew up very poor and spent many holidays without presents, food, we use this time as a way to remind ourselves how blessed we are and we adopt a family (you can call Lighthouse Christian Ministries for a list of needs if you're local to League City, TX). What is great about Lighthouse is that your drop the toys off to the parent or at the door so the kids think that the parent was able to buy for them and they don't know it was charity.

12.  Our annual organization is World Vision where you can donate by giving animals for villages, donating money for sexually exploited children, and even help American children in poverty. You donate $25 and it helps the American children with necessities worth $325. 

13.  When the kids are older I am planning on having them come with me to serve in a food kitchen for the homeless. 

14.  Last year we asked our friends and family to help us pack the food pantry at our church instead of bringing presents to our daughter's birthday party. It turned out so great! We loaded up her wagon and she pulled it into the church. She helped her daddy put cans, diapers, and all sorts of stuff on the shelves. The whole time she kept talking about how she was helping "the babies". 

15.  We mostly have been doing books according to the season. One of my favorites is "Who is Coming to Our House" http://www.amazon.com...

16.  We Use a nativity scene as an advent calendar. You can tell a different part of the Christmas story each day as you get closer to Christmas. I made my own so that there were enough things to add to the scene for each of the 25 days (manger, wise men, sheep, shepherds, Mary...of course baby Jesus on Christmas day), but you can also purchase some that have it planned out for you online. 

17.  We help the kids pick out or make a gift for each member of our family. The idea is that they will learn the joy of giving and not just getting. You can give them $1 for each family member at the dollar store or help them make something...and wrap it themselves. 

18.  We will choose an angel on the christmas tree at the mall and have him wrap the requested gift and drop it off.

Don't ya love how the kids put all the ornaments on the same three branches?  I think when they're grown up, I'll do that myself just to remind me of this time.

New Uses for Old Christmas Cards

For Christmas this year, I wanted the kids to make or pick out a gift for each family member.  I also wanted to reuse last year's Christmas cards because it seems like such a waste to toss out the ones we received.  So, I did some on-line research and found some fun ideas that I will use with the kids this year.  Below are my favorites from a website that listed 10 crafts for old Christmas cards.

CHRISTMAS PLACE MATS. Cut out pictures from your favorite Christmas cards from past years. Make a collage with the pictures or arrange the card fronts in rows. Glue the cards/pictures onto a sheet of paper. When finished, have the place mats laminated (or use clear contact paper) and you’re set! Don’t forget to write pertinent information on the back before you laminate, such as the year and names and ages of the kids who made them. These make great gifts. (We made these for our family for Christmas breakfast!)

PHOTO FRAMES. Make simple photo frames to hang on the tree or place around the house. Measure the photo you want to frame, then cut out an oval, rectangle or other shape from the front of the card to go over the photo. Tape the photo to the inside of the card front. Open the card slightly to stand it up. Or, glue the card closed and punch a hole near the top, thread with ribbon and hang it on the tree. 

3 Types of CHRISTMAS TREE ORNAMENTS. 

1. Select a picture you can cut out, such as a reindeer, angel or Santa. Glue the card closed and let dry. Cut out the picture, punch a hole near the top and thread with ribbon. Or, cut the card into an interesting shape around the picture, such as a diamond or teardrop or star.
2. Cut out pictures from the cards. Glue them onto ornament shapes cut from construction paper, lace paper doilies, felt, painted cardboard, craft foam, etc. Punch a hole near the top and thread with ribbon or yarn.
3. Ignoring the picture on the front of the card, cut a spiral, starting large and spiraling inward to the center of the card front. When finished, pull the spiral slightly so that it will hang three-dimensionally like a Christmas tree. Use a pin to poke a hole in the top center of the spiral and loop some thread to it for hanging.

We're planning to adapt the picture frame / ornament idea by cutting out a frame from cardboard.  After we cut out the pictures we wanted for the place mats, the kids tore the rest of the cards into small scraps of paper.  

We will use a paste-water mix (just water down the glue a little bit in a bowl) to paint the scraps onto the cardboard (coating the cardboard first, and then coating on top over the layered scraps).  Then we'll paste a picture of the kids on the back so it's visible through the whole in the cardboard frame and we'll thread a ribbon on it to make it an ornament. 

Our Christmas card scraps, ready to go:

My sister did this on a larger scale for Lily's birthday party this year: 

The finished product:

Of course, our Christmas ornament frames will be much smaller and probably shaped like Christmas trees.

NEW YEAR's TRADITION for Christmas Cards:
Another tradition I heard about in recent years and really, really want to start in our family this year comes from the book Let's Make a Memory by Shirley Dobson and Gloria Gaither.  It's 15 years old, but it's a great book ideas to make wonderful new holiday and every day traditions.  In the book, Shirley Dobson describes how she and her husband, Dr. James Dobson (of Focus on the Family ministries) save the Christmas cards and letters they receive and reread one or two each night at dinner time starting New Year's Day.  This allows them more time to really let the message of each card or letter soak in.  After they read each card or letter, they pray together for the family or individual who sent it to them.  I think this is an awesome way to start the new year and honor the effort each person takes to bless us with a card or letter.

Freezing Fun

Yesterday, as we were driving down the road in our neighborhood we noticed the fountain had large icicles forming.  Now, for you folks who live in places that get actual seasons, this is not going to sound very exciting.  But here in Houston we have only two seasons: 1. the hot and muggy season and 2. the not hot or muggy season.  So, being the cool and adventurous mom that I am (also rash and sometimes stupid), I pulled over and plucked an icicle off for each of my kids, which they proceeded to eat before I realized that it probably is not filtered water!  (If they get amoebic dysentery you'll know why!)

Anyway, the moment gave me an idea for last night, when temperatures were to hit below freezing (very rare here).  So the kids and I did a science experiment befitting the season-deprived status we hold.

First we pulled out some paper cups from the pantry and put the kids initials on them:

Then we put a small toy in each cup:

We filled each cup with water:

Added food coloring (just for fun) and set them outside to freeze overnight:

This morning, we woke up to 12 frozen cups o' fun:

And what better place to play with them than the bathtub?  (after removing the paper cup!):

It's going to get below freezing again overnight, if you want to try it (and if you'd rather avoid the chance of staining anything, you can skip the food coloring part...but color makes everything more fun).

***PS: after the second year of doing this activity, we learned a good lesson in volume: don't use too much water in the cups or it won't freeze.  Dixie cup size is great, especially when filled only halfway.