Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Need a Little Christmas...NOW


Today we made these snowflakes out of pipe cleaner and pony beads. No two are alike of course!
First we worked on memorizing the 3rd stanza of "Twas the Night Before Christmas." This is just so our brains don't freeze completely from having a couple of weeks off from school. We also read a short little story, "The Apple Tree Christmas." The story almost made it sound fun to live in a barn. It's about the simplicity of Christmas-es way back before there was W-mart. It also inspired the girls to eat some of our apples.

Yesterday, our neighbor taught the girls about Christmas traditions in Germany, where the tradition of decorating pine trees originated. They had rice pudding and decorated gingerbread houses with graham crackers and lots of gooey frosting.


We were lucky enough this year to have a spontaneous ice skating rink form in our yard. Kate was the first one who discovered it and since then it has become a main attraction for all the kids. Oh they've had their share of falling, wet bums, and cold hands, but they still like to go out. Kate will bring out the radio and blast the Christmas music. Today she spent a whole hour with Adrie choreographing a lovely skating dance complete with whirls and twirls.


While I was planning all the fun activities we'd do this week Kate (who's 8 and great) taught me a great lesson. She had just read the newspaper and came to me after we had read our bedtime Bible story. Apparently she had come across a picture of an ad that showed an old man with a plate. It said something like, "Can you help the hungry?" I had remembered seeing that ad running for a few weeks now and I hadn't even given it a second thought. But, Kate, who is so sensitive and compassionate was visibly moved by it and wanted to help. The next day we had a true CHRISTmas activity. The girls cut out that picture in the paper and went around the neighborhood collecting money in a jar to send to the homeless shelter. With their own contributions and that of the neighbors they collected $16.30. That is enough to give 9 people Christmas dinner. Thanks Kate for teaching us the true spirit of Christmas!

1 comment:

Heather said...

You are so inspiring to me. I am in the home school doldrums at the moment and reading your blog reminds me how much I want to do this! What beautiful Christmas memories...Keep writing! H