Last week of Christmas Books

Good King Wenceslas - Dec 13

I had really never paid much attention to this song until I read Jocelyn's blog at beinglds.   This book takes the words from the song and illustrates it.  I don't think this book is in print anymore, so I ended up ordering this book used on Amazon.  I think this is Thomas' second favorite book so far.  He really loved learning about the old English verbiage.  Out of all the books, I think Thomas understood the message of giving and helping those less fortunate the best from this book.  I know every time we hear the song we will have a better appreciation for the story.  The pictures in this book look like stained glass and are really beautiful too.  Here is the how to: stained glass

So for our craft we made stained glass ornaments to hang in our window.  We used black foam, seran wrap, elmers glue, and markers. They are simple and even Carter proof!  You can find the how to here: 

The Night Before Christmas - Dec 14

Today we read The Night Before Christmas, illustrated by Jan Brett.  For our craft today, we made sugarplum ornaments.  I realized while we were doing this that Carter really loves to paint.  He is a little messy, but pretty good at it.  I thought that these sugarplums really turned out well.  Here is the how to: sugar plums

Reindeer Games - Dec 15

Since we did not get to do all of our reindeer activities in Utah, I thought we needed another reindeer day. 

Thomas looking in the "Ho Ho bag" for his book and activity

Every day he opens his card that lists what we are going to do that day.

For Breakfast we had reindeer pancakes.

After reading our books, we made reindeer bags for our sunbeam friends.  They were super cute and of course I did not take a picture.  you can see it here:  Little Wonders

We also made the reindeer ball ornaments from that page.

After Thomas  got home from school we made these reindeer clothes pin ornaments:

We also played a reindeer felt game.  The kids really liked it.  The little rhyme that goes with the game helped Thomas with rhyming words and helped Carter with his colors.  You can print it out here: reindeer story

Gingerbread Day - Dec 16

It would not be Christmas for me without gingerbread men and a gingerbread house.  Today we read Gingerbread Baby and Gingerbread Friends.

This year making our gingerbread house was so much fun.  Last year Carter only wanted to destroy the house and eat all the candy.  Of course, Carter was still interested in eating the candy, but he was also interested in decorating the house.  Thomas also got to use the icing bag all by himself, which made it much easier as well.  Every year Ryan and I tend to really get into the house decorating thing and end up helping the kids finish it off.

I can't wait to see what the boys will think of as they get older.  This year our house featured a colorful driveway, which included a sporty car, and a landing pad for santa.

All Aboard, This is the Polar Express - Dec 17

Of course in our family of boys, you cannot forget The Polar Express.  Today, we got to read the book and watch the movie.  For the activity, Thomas got to cut out ticket out of golden paper and write "Believe" on each one

After the movie, we had fun lining up the chairs pretending that it was a train.  Thomas was the conductor and punched our tickets.  He then insisted that we reenact most of the movie.  Afterwards, we made yummy hot chocolate.

Clown of God - Dec 18

Today, we read The Clown of God.  This is not really your typical Christmas book.  In this retelling of an old French legend, a juggler offers to the Christ Child the only Christmas gift he has, his talents.

For our craft we made colorful paint swirl ornaments.  Thomas and Carter both had fun making these.  I think next time I will buy glass paint instead of acrylic though.  Here is the how to: swirled ornaments

Santa Clause came a few days early (on the 22nd) to our house so that we could go spend time with Mimi and Papa V on Christmas.  So Monday - Wednesday we read books that were more centered on the birth of Christ.  Here are some of the books we read:

Room for a Little One

We Were There

Bright Christmas

The Littlest Angel

We also read the account in Luke on Christmas Eve.