HAVE YOURSELF A MERRY MERRY CHRISTMAS

Merry Christmas

When my children were young and Christmas time was coming I made sure they were a part of the celebration right up to Christmas Day. I didn’t want them to think it was only about the presents, I wanted us to come together as a family. We watched Christmas shows together, the Grinch was my favorite, even when I was a child.

We went to church and we participated as a family in making an advent wreath, my three children and their grandmother. My children and I made ours, but we always admired grandma’s she was very artistic and creative her wreath was always beautiful.

As the holiday grew closer I got the cookie cutters out, but not to make cookies. We used them to trace onto felt and we cut out the design, then we would decorate them with sequence, beads and of course sparkles. We would glue two same sides together leaving a small opening and stuff it with poly-fill inside then we would finish gluing the two same sides together and hang them on the Christmas tree. The kids and their friends loved doing this and I loved doing it with them.

I have one or two left from our past Christmases; but the children liked them so much that they very often ended up in their rooms. I also have the decorations that they made at school these are treasures that they created and I could never bring myself to throw away. Some of the other things I’ve done with the children, is to take old Christmas cards, mine and the ones I collected from relatives and friends. I taught the children how to make Christmas post cards with the cards, so that they can give them out at school.

To make the post cards you just remove the front of the card and you write on the opposite side your Merry Christmas, turn it over to the front where the picture is you might want to add some sparkles to the make the card even more special, when you add your creative touch.

All these things were family projects that we did as a family and of course any one that wanted to join us. The children were busy all the way up till Christmas, then on Christmas Eve we would bake a birthday cake for Jesus. As the children and I added the ingredients we would take about Jesus and the meaning of Christmas. One year my youngest son, when the cake was all done shouted out “Happy Birthday Jesus”, he was about two and half years old.

It is those memories that I shared with my family that will keep with me always and I hope that when they have children that they will find their own traditions and enjoy them through the years, I got so much pleasure from mine. And who knows maybe I will have grand children one day so that I can get those cookie cutters and perhaps make a memory for them.