christmas story continued...

I started telling my girls a simplified version of the Christmas story using my nativity figures.  Unfortunately I can't leave my nativity set up this year because some little fingers in our house are a bit too rough for my homemade nativity set.  Maybe next year??  I hope so, I miss not having it on display.  But I did take out the pieces yesterday to tell the story and the girls loved it - and I let them have a little play.

Joseph and Mary - with a baby in her tummy - had to walk a long way to go to Bethlehem to pay their taxes.  They took a donkey to carry all the things they would need on their journey.

When they arrived there was no room for them to stay anywhere, so they found a place in a barn with the animals.  Baby Jesus was born and they laid him in a manger.

The shepherds were in the fields looking after their sheep when the angels came down and told them a King had been born.

The 3 Kings came to visit baby Jesus, and brought with them gifts of gold, frankinsence and myrhh.

Ok, was that short enough? becuase by now my little girls were over listening to the story, and just wanted to play !!...and so we did...

...I love Christmas time...

it's beginning to feel a lot like christmas...

Christmas Gnomes & Advent Calendars

It's the 1st of December, so today, in our house, it's going to start feeling like Christmas ! 

I dug out my trusty old advent calendar, and old it is...I made it for my twins 17 years ago - 17 years ago!  Oh my !  Thát makes me feel a bit old  he! he!  But hey, it's done it's job every year, and the kids have loved it every year.

I love my advent calendar

I had lots of fun making this all those years ago.  And I've had lots of fun trying to dream up age appropriate fun ideas of things to put inside each sock - aswell as some last minute headaches too ! 

This year I hadn't planned on putting it up - too lazy to get organized ??  Shame on me !  But then Ruby's uncle arrived a couple of days ago... he is taking her on a train in a couple of weeks to stay at her nana's until we get there for Christmas and she has been asking me every five minutes if she is going on a train in the morning (she is soooo excited - can you tell ??).  So my solution, for my sanity, was to put up the advent calendar to give her an idea of how many days it is until she goes on the train.  I made a little Christmas gnome to put in 'today's' stocking so she can see what day it is today...and every day she can move it to the next stocking.

Little Christmas peg gnome

Today is the1st of December - thankyou Christmas gnome !

...so the plan for tonight is to make a little marker with a train on the top and put that in the no. 13 stocking - that's when the train leaves, so each day she can see she is getting closer to THE DAY !!! - and she can stop asking me!

And....just seeing those little stockings hanging on the wall got me all excited about doing advent again...so luckily, we had a few lollies in the cupboard (thankyou uncle) so I snuck a couple into todays stocking, one for Ruby and one for Marlise - they were so excited it made it all worth while.  Tomorrow I will be more organized - no more lollies.

The Christmas Story

This is Mary and Joseph.  Marlise was intrigued.  This year, instead of putting out the whole nativity set, I've decided to tell the kids a little bit of the Christmas story at a time. 

Keeping it nice and simple...the story for this week is about the angel that came to Mary to tell her she was going to have a baby and his name would be Jesus.  I even stuffed some wool inside Mary's dress so she looks pregnant - the kids loved it.

Christmas Tree

Today, we decided to make a cardboard Christmas tree for Ruby to decorate. 
I'm quite pleased with my freehand tree - I expected it to be lopsided, but I was pleasantly surprised !  We made a colourful paper chain together and she stuck on bows and other shiney things and had a great time.  She's so proud of her tree.  I'll post another photo when we've finished decorating.

STOP ! Shower time...

It was stinking hot today, and so humid...only place to be is under a cold shower...

Community Christmas

Our local library put on a Christmas event for the kids this afternoon and it was awesome.  They made simple decorations to hang on the Christmas tree, sang carols and had a visit from Santa.  Was lots of fun.

Here's Ruby and Marlise hanging up their first decoration - 2 pipe cleaners, a red and a white, twisted together and hooked over on one end to make a candy cane - they looked so good !

 Ruby is making a felt Christmas pudding and glueing it on to a recycled curtain ring.  Such a neat idea !

Now it's looking like a christmas tree ! The kids were all so excited to hang their decorations up.  You can see them all here, candy canes, paper christmas trees, paper chains, christmas puddings, and there are also some wreaths.  Love it !

Marlise making her paper Christmas tree.

And now she's found a special place to hang it...  oh woops!  Just noticed it's a different colour to the one she made !! haha! how did that happen ?

When Santa came in to the room Marlise got scared and screamed out "no!"' - it was really funny - sorry my baby.  but it was all good afterwards when they gave out shortbread and red  cordial.

What are you doing to get ready fro Christmas this year?