Be Back Soon
While I have been sorely neglecting my new sweet blog, I promise to return soon. School is on break at the moment, but you can find us cooking and baking here, and living lively here.
Merry Christmas.
Late Start Christmas Idea
You might be like me.
You might be a little late wrapping your head around Christmas this year. You might be like me and have all the intentions in the world to create a meaningful, non-worldly celebration of Christ’s birthday this year, but for one reason or another you’re still trying to figure out the daily tasks like getting dinner made. You might be like me and enjoy all things creative and get overwhelmed by all your brilliant ideas and procrastinate picking one or two and now it’s December 11th.
Last week I wrote about our daily advent of unwrapping christmas books. After a few days I realized that book time had become much more exciting then reading the Word.
Here’s an idea that we started just a few days ago. Luke has 24 chapters, perfect for Advent(if it were December 1st), so a few days ago I handed out some blank books that I picked up a while back and a special set of sketching pencils. I told the kids that I was going to read a chapter from Luke and they could draw pictures from the story as I read. At the end of the month, I told them, you’ll have your own book of the Christmas story. Each morning since we’ve started, when I’ve announced it’s Bible time, there have been shouts of “Yeaaa”!
Mookie, age 9
Jellybean, age 7
Drummer Boy, age 4 1/2
To make this idea work for you:
- Luke tells the story beyond the birth of Jesus. You might look at the other gospels and pick one that tells the early Christmas events in more detail. Pick 12 chapters to finish off the days until Christmas.
- This activity will be more exciting if you give your children some specials supplies they only use for this activity. If you don’t have blank books, make one with construction paper, blank printer paper, and staples or yarn. Consider a new pack of crayons, pencils, markers, or sketch pencil.
- If you’re doing this with younger children, allow them freedom of imagination. In our Drummer Boy’s Christmas Story, there are pirates and a computer. But he is listening to the story and gaining confidence in his drawing skills.
- Stop once or twice during your reading and ask a child to narrate back what’s happened so far.
- My kids drew large, two page pictures and then realized a few days later that their pages would be used up before we read all of the chapters. You might let your children now how many days they’ll be drawing so they can divide up their book.
Let me know if you give it a try at your house.
Holiday Book Basket-All Wrapped Up
Most of you know that we have a tiny, barely noticeable, really-we-could-give-it-up-anytime, passion for books in our family. Last year we put together a winter basket of our favorite books, which gave us countless hours of cozy couch time. This year we’re continuing the tradition with an added tint of pleasure.
I came across the idea to choose 24 books, wrap each book, and add a number tag to each package. Suddenly our winter book basket is an advent countdown. Last night Mr. Darcy and I sat up wrapping packages, and I said “Honey, you are so crazy and sweet to be sitting here doing this with me instead of telling me I’m nuts.” I should mention it was the far side of midnight and the night before he’d been at the E.R. with our 9 year old. He replied smilingly, “Honey, we’ve been married for ten years, I know all about your ideas.”
We’ve been adding a christmas book here and there for 9 years so we happen to have more than 24 books. However, you may be be at the beginning of your collection. Try scouting out thrift stores and used bookstores, look for special seasonal sales, or get really thrifty and wrap up a new batch of christmas library books each week.
To further your christmas journey into books check out Crafty Crow’s great book/advent post. I’ll be adding several of hers to our library list.
We also enjoyed this lapbook/unit study, The Legend of the Candy Cane a few years ago, free at Homeschool Share.
For more great ideas about reading and advent, head to Real Learning. After enjoying her links, scroll down and look in the left sidebar for a list of great christmas books. This post includes a review of family favorites.
Happy Holiday Reading!
