One way to get kids into the holiday spirit is to develop family traditions that can last a lifetime. Traditions can keep the ties of a family strong.
A tradition that our family did every Christmas was picking an ornament theme to collect every Christmas, and buying a new ornament for your collection every year. I always loved going to Hallmark® the weeks before Christmas and finding out what new ornament had come out for my collection. I started out collecting Hershey's Chocolate ornaments, but after about 5 ornaments that collection was discontinued.
I then turned to Peanuts characters. My mom's theme was Lego and Crayola ornaments and her collection grew quite big as they are still releasing ornaments for that collection to this day. We collected Holiday Barbie and general Barbie ornaments at one point in time, as well.
There are so many themes out there to choose, from Disney characters, popular candies, to classic movies, TV shows or cartoons. Let you child decide on their own theme and let them build up their own collection through the years.
The Craftiest Time of the Year.
With the holidays nearing, I cannot help but think back on all the great Christmas-y art projects my mom let us kids create. One of the most popular hand-made crafts you can let your child get involved in is making Holiday ornaments. We made our own ornaments at least every Christmas that I can recall. My favorite would have to have been the Salt Dough ornaments.
Here are a couple my sister did. The first when she was just 6 years and the other when she was 11.These can be made with just a simple recipe of
2 cups of Flour
1 Cup of Salt
1 Cup Water
Kneading dough to combine, Cutting out your shapes, Baking at 325 degrees until dry (this can take up to 2hrs)
Another Holiday project for the kids is to make Sock Snowmen. For this you will need:
-an old, white crew sock,
-a pipe cleaner of any color(as a scarf)
-black pom pom craft balls(two 1/2" for buttons, two 1/8" for eyes)
-(could use googly eyes instead)
- 1 toothpick that has been colored orange (w/ marker or paint)
- colorful 1" pom pom ball for hat
-craft pillow stuffing
All you need to do is stuff your sock with the pillow stuffing(Not too full), Fold
the ankle section of crew sock over, then fold about 1" of that back up making a Hat. Tie Pipe Cleaner about half way up the body of the stuffed section twisting the remaining length of pipe to make a Scarf. Hot Glue Black pom poms for eyes and buttons, and for colored pom pom that tops the Hat. Insert the toothpick just below the eyes to make a carrot-like nose.
(as seen in picture below)
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