Christmas comes every year on December 25. It is celebrated with brightly decorated evergreen trees, family meals, stockings hung over the fireplace, Christmas morning presents, and more.
Christmas is an excellent time to spend time with kids making homemade gifts for relatives. And it is a fun time to send your adult kids care packages too. I used to love the yearly
packages full of homemade maple syrup, handmade pickles, etc. that my grandparents used to send from back east every Christmas. And my son has not come anywhere close to outgrowing Christmas yet, at age 23.
Beginning at 2:00 am MTN on Christmas Eve, you can track Santa **Live** as he makes his historical
journey around the world in 2007!
The story of this santa tracking is an interesting one...NORAD's site says "For more than 50 years, NORAD and its predecessor, the
Continental Air Defense Command (CONAD) have tracked Santa. The tradition began on Christmas Eve in 1955 after a Colorado Springs-based Sears Roebuck & Co. store advertisement
for children to call Santa on a special "hotline" included an inadvertently misprinted telephone number. Instead of Santa, the phone number put kids through to the CONAD
Commander-in-Chief's operations "hotline." The Director of Operations, Colonel Harry Shoup had his staff check radar data for any indication of Santa making his way south
from the North Pole. Indeed there were signs of Santa and children who called were given an update on Santa's location. Thus, the tradition was born. In 1958, the governments of
Canada and the United States created a bi-national air defense command for the North American continent called the North American Air Defense Command, known as NORAD. NORAD
inherited the tradition of tracking Santa."
At the NORAD site, you can send email to Santa's helpers and
read about how Santa pulls it all off..."The fact that Santa Claus is more than 15 centuries old and does not appear to age is
our biggest clue that he does not work within time, as we know it. His Christmas Eve trip may seem to take around 24 hours, but to Santa it could be that it lasts days, weeks or
months in standard time. Santa would not want to rush the important job of bringing Christmas happiness to a child, so the only logical conclusion is that Santa somehow
functions on a different time and space continuum."
My son made this ornament for me when he was about 9 years old. It is still one of my favorite ornaments every year, even though he is now 23 years old!
Making crafts with kids at Christmas makes memories and fun gifts for family!
**MAKE A SNOW GLOBE!** Use a mason jar with a lid. In the bottom of the jar, glue things down with waterproof glue, such as houses, trees, little animals, sleighs, santa, reindeer, etc. Let dry
then for every cup of water you pour into the jar, add 1 c of vinegar. Mix 1/2 t of baking soda with just a few drops of the liquid to dampen it, then add to the jar. Crush 4-5 mothballs and drop them into the jar. They will dance up and down like snow.
**CHRISTMAS POTPOURRI ON THE STOVE** 1 c crushed bay leaves * 4 fresh or dried rosemary sprigs * 6 three inch cinnamon sticks * 6 cloves * rind of 1 orange
Put all ingredients in a pan with 4 cups of water and bring to a boil. Then turn the heat down and simmer. You can leave this on the stove to make your house smell wonderful during the holidays! Make sure to check the pan and add water regularly so it does not set your house on fire!!!
**VISIONS OF SUGAR PLUMS** You can make frosted/sugared fruits with the following recipe. This recipe works well with limes, lemons, kumquats, grapes, dates, pears, clementines, plums...
2 T marshmallow cream * 4 t water * sugar * fruit
Mix the marshmallow cream and water, then brush this onto the outside of the fruit, then roll in granulated sugar to coat completely and thoroughly. Air dry on wax paper and arrange on a cake stand or nice plate...
Part of the fun of the holidays is making gifts for people you love. You can cut up sheet music you no longer need or want and then
glue the pieces together in a paper chain. Then use it as a garland to decorate your Christmas tree! They also make wonderful inexpensive gifts that kids can help make for your
musician friends! Comic strips also make nice garlands, as well as foreign language newspapers and magazines. You can make garlands out of cut up playing cards, stapled
together into rings too. You can make an advent calendar paper garland or print out some fun snowflake
or holly patterned paper chains (see links below). You can also collage boxes with pictures from newspapers and magazines
to make them look like nice gift boxes, as in the picture above. Doing arts and crafts with kids at Christmas is time well-spent. I have only fond memories of making Christmas
gifts for family members as a kid with my mom and grandma.
Below are some fun Christmas resources that can help you have fun with your kids, and self, this winter. There are loads of free games, templates, recipes, etc. below...Take some time to
explore and then take some time to make memories that will last a lifetime...
My son made this ornament for me when he was about 9 years old. It is still one of my favorite ornaments every year, even though he is now 23 years old!
Making crafts with kids at Christmas makes memories and fun gifts for family!
You can cut up sheet music you no longer need or want and then
glue the pieces together in a paper chain. Then use it as a garland to decorate your Christmas tree! They also make wonderful inexpensive gifts that kids can help make for your
musician friends! Comic strips also make nice garlands, as well as foreign language newspapers and magazines. You can make garlands out of cut up playing cards, stapled
together into rings too. You can make an 
Kirsten Anderberg. All rights reserved. For permission to reprint/publish, please contact Kirsten at kirstena@resist.ca.