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Archive for the ‘Christmas Holiday’ Category
Reindeer Christmas Crafts For Kids
December 14th, 2009 | 
Author: Create a fun-filled evening for your family by combining these adorable reindeer themed Christmas crafts with a special showing of Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer. In this post, I will share just of few of my kids favorite reindeer crafts along with the instructions for making my childhood favorite...A Clothespin Reindeer.
To create this cute little reindeer, you will need three old fashioned wooden clothespins (I bought mine at Michaels craft center), two wiggly eyes, a small red pom-pom for the nose, and some glue.
Assemble the reindeer by gluing two of the clothes pins together to form the deer's body, then glue the last clothespin (in the opposite direction) to create the face and antlers. Finally, glue on the eyes and red pom-pom nose as shown in the photo.
Tip - I like to use these as ornaments on the tree so when gluing on the face, we insert a loop of thin red ribbon or string in the glue between the body and the face. Then you have a little hanger.
Here are some links to a few of my other favorite Christmas reindeer crafts:
Wooden Spoon Rudolph - makes a cute addition to the kids Christmas dinner table
Paper Plate Rudolph - makes a great holiday wall hanging
Rudolph Puzzle Pin
Reindeer Candy Cane - my kids give these out to their friends & classmates
Light Bulb Reindeer - recommended for older children or adults
If your family has a new addition this year, be sure to check out our reindeer hooded towel Christmas gift which includes an adorable reindeer hooded towel, two matching wash clothes and a pacifier. Super cute!
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Santa Crafts For Kids
My kids love making crafts (especially when the holidays roll around). In this post, I'm sharing some of my favorite Santa-themed crafts that are easy to make and easy on the budget. I would say that kids aged from 4 - 8 would like these craft ideas best, but they are great for any age. Kids love to give these to their friends as little holiday gifts too! Put them all in a Christmas gift basket, any child would love it!
One of my favorite crafts that uses leftover Pringles cans is this Chip Can Santa Craft that I found at Craft Kaboose. To make Santa, you'll need a Pringles can, felt (red, white, black, peach), cotton balls for the beard, a small pink pom-pom for the nose, two wiggly eyes, a medium white pom-pom for the end of the hat and some glittery silver chenille. You'll also need to have glue and scissors handy. You can get the printable patterns to create the boots, jacket trim, and arms and the full instructions for putting him together here at Craft Kaboose.
Here are links to some more of my favorite Santa-themed Christmas crafts:
- Santa's Bearded Christmas Advent Calender
- Santa Box
- Cup and Ball Santa Craft
- Wooden Spoon Santa
- Ho Ho Ho Santa Door Knob Hanger
- Santa's Magic Key (so Santa can get in the house without a chimney)
If you are an Aunt or Grandmother who lives a long way from your grandchildren, consider giving them a craft kit so they can make a little something fun even if you aren't there to help them. Or consider, our Child's Reindeer Holiday Chef Set which comes with a little chef hat and a personalized holiday themed apron for the child that loves to help in the kitchen.
Posted in Christmas Holiday | 
Tags: christmas crafts for kids, craft ideas for kids, crafts for children, holiday crafts, santa crafts | 
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Christmas Celebration
I think back to Change Islands in the twenties. Christmas didn't start then, as it does now, back in November. In October, we had to get ready for Bonfire Night in early November and rest awhile; then came Advent, a solemn season when we were supposed to get ready in mind and spirit for the coming of the Savior, and hold ourselves back if tempted to anticipate too excessively what lay ahead. Just a few days before Christmas Day, toys would be on display in the shops and a few decorations here and there. The Christmas tree had not yet become popular and in our case was only seen in the Church and perhaps the Lodge if there was going to be a children's party.
Behind us children lay the school concert and Christmas exams; behind adults lay the squarin' up, trips up the bay for wood, the stowing away of fishing gear, the hauling up of boats and the killing of the pig and saltwater birds. Adults intended to celebrate Christmas with the minimum of work and maximum of fun and, in their way, enjoy it as much as children did. We became almost obsessed with the prospect of mummering at night, and sliding during the day and visiting homes for syrup or peppermint with cake and cheese.
And so Christmas Day came and the community met in Church either at midnight or Christmas morning and celebrated as one big family an event of long ago involving one small family. And we thought about it for the rest of the day as we ate and played and visited grandparents and aunts and uncles and a few special friends.
Then came St. Stephen's Day - Boxing Day now - and for twelve days and nights there was holiday celebration, not necessarily to do with the Christ child but with many a child of nature of pre- or non-Christian society. There's nothing especially Christian or un-Christian about feasting, mummering, or enjoying a drop of stuff for a season. It's just a natural thing to do if you can find the right occasion, and most of us are pleased that the Church in her wisdom retained many of the customs of the pagan world for our enjoyment. The main thing was, and still is, to keep the balance right, to keep Christ in Christmas as well as a few other nice things and try to get rid of some of the ridiculous excesses of today in costly holiday gifts and terribly expensive habits. There must surely be a return to simplicity and controlled celebration and spending.
ChangeIslands by Justinian Dowell who came there as teacher in the 1870s and remained till his death early in this century. The play belongs to the hero-combat form, and could well have been forgotten but for Joe Peckford, a Change Islander living in Gander Bay, who remembered it word for word pretty well. He and my father were good friends and I often heard the latter recite large sections. It's worth reading; see the section "Newfoundland Mummers' Plays: Three Printed Texts" in Halpert and Story's Christmas Mumming inNewfoundland. By my time, a generation later, it had vanished. We simply went mummering, with the emphasis on concealing our identity in voice and attire and visiting all the homes we could manage on any given night and having all the fun we could make.
But, apart from this, other things went on among adults. The people were not heavy drinkers and went most of the year without liquor; but they liked a drop of stuff for times of celebration. At the turn of the century rum was cheap and very strong, so strong that when taken on an empty stomach it was referred to as 'a punch in the gut'. It really was like being hit; it cut its way down. And the old-timers brought over from their home countries a word for a drink or a swallow, namely a horn (which was pronounced 'ham' down home). You could hear an old-timer shouting to some buddy on a cold, frosty morning "Come in for a ham 0' rum." Exactly how much a horn was I don't know, but it came up to a certain point on a glass and most people knew how much a tipple should be. It was certainly very strong but no one would dream of spoiling it with water. No wonder a Change Islander said about ten years ago when we were down there," 'Tis not rum at all now, too wake" (weak) and with a disgusted grin told of a St. John's fellow "down here the other day who wanted water in hees".
At times of celebration there was a drop around, and some made it if they couldn't buy it. Imagine all through the Christmas season groups of men going from house to house and settling in one house for a feed and a game of Auction 45s. An old man described it to me most dramatically and I could well imagine the empty feeling when Christmas was over. The hard thing was trying to get back to work, especially if you knew that somebody had a drop left. 
Posted in Christmas Holiday |
Tags: christmas, christmas celebrations, christmas day, christmas traditions |
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Was Christmas Ever "What it used to be"?
"Christmas is not what it used to be," we wail. "It's just a commercial farce. Just matters of get, get, get and buy, buy, buy, and the more money you spend the better. Christmas has been commercialized beyond repair. Ah, for the good old days."
I wonder if Christmas was ever "what it used to be".
Don't we all think of the good things that happened to us in childhood as the absolute ultimate in happiness? And won't our own children, in ten, twenty, thirty years time, look back on the Christmases of the swinging sixties and moan that Christmas is just not what it used to be?
Children, after all, are the lucky ones. It's not their worry if we get all our cakes baked in time, polish off our housecleaning and complete our gift list. They just know that, come Christmas Eve, a kind of magic will transform the house that has been in slings for the past month, the shimmering tree will be in place and mother will wear a smile again instead of that grim look around her mouth. We older ones forget that this will happen, but the children remember. And, cynic though I am sometimes, never have I been able to escape being possessed by that shining Christmas Eve feeling. It comes suddenly, and it doesn't last very long, but I do think that life would be much poorer without it.
LongBridge every time we went to church or to the movies or to visit north side friends we never said we were going over unless we planned to go shopping. And that little word still conjures up for me visions of shops with long counters and high stools to sit on when your feet hurt, grocery stores where you could pick out your own sweet biscuits from big wooden boxes and small ice cream parlors where the most delicious sodas in the world were made by tipping a bottle of Iron beer over a scoop of vanilla ice cream.
All the other preparations were made that are common to most people everywhere when Christmas is approaching. Cakes were baked, puddings steamed, and during the war, holiday care packages were packed for the boys overseas, for there seemed to be at least one missing from every home on the south side. When I was very young, in the early days of the war, I was angry at the Germans because we couldn't have lemon syrup for Christmas any more. To this day I don't understand why, but I remember hearing my aunt, an expert syrup maker, say sadly that since the war started you couldn't get the proper ingredients. And the bought lemon syrup was a very poor substitute. The war's been over for a long time now and I still haven't tasted that unforgettable homemade lemon syrup. I wish someone would give me the recipe.
Of course, most of the men on the South Side were more concerned about a more bracing kind of liquid refreshment. Even those who were very sober and sedate all year generally managed to persuade themselves that a "little drop 0' stuff for Christmas" was different. The women, who considered the taking of strong drink an indulgence for men only, could usually be persuaded to take a small glass of port wine at Christmas time and blueberry and rice wine, being homemade, didn't really count, although some of it had an almighty kick to it. The children had to be content with ginger wine, which was wine in name only. Although it nearly burned the throats out of us we couldn't imagine a Christmas without it.
Sometimes I wonder how many of our family worries and irritations really touch our children. Since I've grown older I've often heard my father speak of the time during the depression when his pitifully small salary was cut again. But, looking back, I can't even remember which Christmas that was, so it couldn't have been very different from any other so far as I was concerned. With the carefree selfishness of childhood, I suppose I didn't notice that his coat was shabby that year or that my mother put a new collar on last year's good dress instead of buying another one. I had my new frilled yellow organdy dress, though, and shiny black patent-leather shoes. I don't think they wanted me to know how hard it was to find the money for them.
In the last few days before Christmas the grown-ups seemed to lose their minds, muttering under their breath that this year things would never be ready in time and shooing the children out of the way. By the day before Christmas Eve, with school, concerts and most of the big preparations behind us, the tension eased a little. We called it Christmas Eve Eve. Many turkeys and geese, traditional corporate Christmas gifts of employers to employees, began to arrive on that day; most of them delivered in horse-drawn carts whose jingling bells announced their arrival. Christmas cookies and fudge were made then, too, with mothers and aunts wearing out their brains trying to think of new places to hide them from ever-searching fingers. The men of the family were a little later than usual returning from work that night, but the women were much more understanding than they were at any other time of year.
When I try to sort out my feelings in that long-ago time, I think the strongest one in our house was: "If only everyone in the world could be as lucky as we are."
I don't remember if I ever heard this sentiment expressed in so many words, but it was there, as real as the Christmas tree, and it was shared by everyone who lived under our roof. We didn't have very much, just a tall, narrow, rented house joined to a lot of other tall, narrow, rented houses but there was a spirit there that seemed to be especially prevalent at Christmas time. We were ordinary people, living in close proximity to a lot of other ordinary people, but somehow few of us ever felt ordinary. It's beyond me to explain why.
Nowadays, we often complain that people don't just drop in any more, but wait to be invited. Sometimes, fearful that I've been painting the past in too rosy a hue again, I ask myself if they ever did just "drop in."
I can state firmly that on the South Side they certainly did, especially at Christmas time. Christmas Eve was the men's night. Late in the afternoon the callers began to come, some of them arriving while we were in the middle of our pork-chop supper, without which no Christmas Eve would be complete. When this happened my mother and my aunt would look at each other with resignation, raising their eyebrows and lifting their shoulders. But it would not do to make the visitors unwelcome. They were ushered into the resplendently papered front room where newspapers were still spread carefully over the recently scrubbed floor. And there they would sit and talk and drink and sit some more.
One Christmas Eve in particular I remember there was one caller who didn't seem to want to go home. My mother, anxious not to be inhospitable but impatient to get started on the tree trimming, asked him gently at one point: "Mr. H-, Mrs. H- will be wondering where you've got to." I'll never forget his rather bleary but unwavering eyes when he looked at her and said slowly: "You want me to go home, don't you? But I'm not going." Poor Mom, defeated for once, retired to the kitchen and that night it was later than usual before the tree decoration was complete.
When we finally crawled into bed it certainly wasn't to sleep, for then the visiting began in earnest. Groups of men made their way from house to house, increasing in numbers and volume as they went along. One night, after I had finally dropped off to sleep, I was awakened by what seemed to me at that time the most beautiful singing in the world. I crept out to the stairs and looked over the banister to see a group of men in the hallway led by silver-haired Mr. Neddy Harvey, a gentleman if there ever was one. "0 Come all ye faithful" was their favorite carol and the roof almost fell off when they came to the line "0 come let us adore Him." It left me with the feeling that they were really on their way to the stable to worship the Infant King.
Next they sang that loveliest of all carols. "Once in royal David's city," and then my grandfather started an old song about England's valleys and hills in which the other men, most of whom like him had never seen England, joined lustily and tearfully. That was followed, naturally enough, by "Carry me back to dear old Blighty" and then somebody suggested "Eternal Father, strong to save". Almost everyone there had a close relative in the Royal Navy. The women joined in then, their work forgotten, and there on the stairs by myself, I sang too, "Oh, hear us when we cry to Thee for those in peril on the sea."
Who can describe Christmas Day?
I don't think I'll even try.
Christmas Eve is, and always has been, my own special time. During the week that followed the big day, visiting was begun in earnest; the women entering into full activity now that they could at last rest on their laurels. The time had come to sample the cakes of their friends, savoring the rich taste but nevertheless remaining convinced that their own were just a little better. We children kept a record of how many places we "had our Christmas" as we called it, and there was usually one day, shortly after Christmas, when we all felt a little squeamish. Then the thought of plummy cakes, rich shortbread cookies and lemon syrup would make us shudder. We were soon ready for another round, however. As one of my mother's friends used to say: "It's worth a bilious attack."
Well, that was what the Christmases of long ago were like, my Christmases at least. When Christmas was what it used to be. But don't you agree with me that today's children, whose tired parents are even now embroiled in the household tasks that have replaced papering and putting down canvas, whose Christmas lists are far from complete and whose heads ache at the prospect of the baking that has to be done, don't you agree that today's children are as far removed from their parents' problems as we were long ago? And that for those same children, who have to grow up just as we did and face a future as uncertain as it can possibly be, this very Christmas of 1969 might well prove to be that unforgettable one, when for just a few brief moments all was right with the world?