Christmas/Hanukkah idea-4

This idea needs some advance planning unless you work really quick, ha. It's based on the traditional "Advent Calendar." Advent is the four week lead up to Christmas Day. An Advent Calendar is a picture of a Christmas scene with a closed "window" for each day in December. On December 1 the first window "1" is opened. If it's a paper calendar it reveals a scene. If it is a three dimensional Advent Calendar, of paper/cardboard, wood, etc. it is often shaped like a drawer and a small toy or candy can be found inside.

I always enjoyed one as a child and still do. It's a devotional item because traditionally the scene is of the Nativity and each door simply reveals more of the picture until the December 24 door shows the Baby Jesus and Holy Family around the manger. They are also nicely done traditional holiday scenes, such as Santa, or winter scenes and so forth. They are especially great for children to give them an enjoyable treat each day leading up to Christmas, helping them to wait for the big day, but also a way to remind them of "the reason for the season."

Well, I've always thought that making one's own Advent Calendar as an advance Christmas present would be a fun and terrific thing to do. All you need is one of those organizers with lots of drawers, such as found in art supply or home improvement stores. For example you can use a standing type with drawers as found in hardware section or flat organizers such as in arts and crafts (like what beading hobbyists use). It really depends on the number and size of drawers needed.

Suppose you have a friend who is an artist. Imagine what fun it would be to give him or her one of these Advent Calendars (you glue a picture on the front and number the drawers) and in each drawer you have a tube of paint or other small art supply. So your friend opens drawer "1" on Dec 1 and already gets a gift. Save the best gift for drawer "24" ha. You can see what I mean that this requires some thought and organizing to make it by Dec 1, but hey, whenever they receive it they can open all the doors up to that date :-)

What if you have a friend who collects, especially small items, like buttons, coins, badges? Again, you put an item that adds to their collection in each drawer.

You could give someone a charm bracelet by putting a charm in each drawer and the bracelet in the Dec 24 door. Likewise you can put friendship bracelets, wrist bands, backpack accessories, and so forth, one in each door.

Obviously this is great for children. They can have a small piece of age appropriate candy in each drawer for an inexpensive but exciting month long experience for them.

You can do this for Advent leading up to Christmas or the Days of Hanukkah!

The Catholic Bishops have an online Advent Calendar at their website www.usccb.org where you click on each door and have faith based ideas for activities, plus the Bible readings for the day. If you do a secular one with your child you might also want to have a printout of the religious Advent Calendar so you can remind your child why the holiday exists and the love of God.

Hallmark and other greeting card stores carry a few designs of the traditional Advent Calendars so do pick one up for yourself. They used to sell out rapidly but every year I see fewer people buying these and even knowing about them. It's such a small thing (having the paper calendar for one's self) but such a great treat each day.

Have fun with this, whatever level you are able to take it to!

Saint recommends child's alphabet play letters

While researching something just now, I can across something so cool. St. Jerome, who lived from 342-420 AD and is one of the great doctors of the church, wrote a letter with this advice for educating an infant:

"Have letters made for her, of boxwood or ivory, and let them be called by their names. Let her play with them, and let the play be part of her instruction..."

He was one of the great Doctors of the Church, and here in latter part of the 4Th century, he is advising her parents about how to make and use what we call today alphabet blocks, except he's suggesting carving each of the actual letters. Far from being isolated from family life and understanding raising children, many saints showed great wisdom and heart in how children should be kindly raised.

A fun hobby and pastime for children

When I was growing up in the 1950's and early 1960's, several of my friends and I developed a really fun hobby that we called "The Trading Post." We got the idea from watching Westerns that portrayed how much early commerce consisted of trading, rather than the use of gold or money. Also, my brother was a collector of baseball cards, and there is a great tradition of trading of baseball cards among young collectors.

We used candy boxes, especially the two layer ones that opened so that the upper and lower levels could be viewed, and then filled them with cool stuff that we enjoyed collecting. For example, being girls, we had pretty buttons, jewelry, charms, the toys you get from gum ball machines, special art supplies that were hard to get (like a small tube of glitter or rubber stamps), ribbons, cool bottle caps, marbles, tokens from board games, such as dice, small toys or tiny plastic animal figures, rocks and crystals and so forth. We would then "open the trading post" during recess at school, or when we played after school, and traded for items we liked from each other's collections. Parents got involved because we'd try to think of cool things to add to our collections. For example, one of us wanted to get sawdust from her dad's wood working shop and color it in batches of different colors (think of it as a poor girl's sand art supply). Since we were all working class poor it was also a way that someone could get a hold of something special, such as a scrap piece of pink satin or pretty lace.

It was amazing fun and since it didn't involve money, just good hearted bargaining, it is a great activity for kids to learn how to barter and how to acquire without it being all about money. I still have stored away in my belongings items that I used to have in my trading post. For example, there used to be a handheld game that had sliding numbered tiles. My friend had a few of them and I traded to get the one that had my birthday number on it; I still have that one!

It's also a way that kids learn that even if they lose interest in certain toys that they have that they can trade with another kid who might really want that toy. Being more of the arts and crafts kind of kids we stuck with small decorative items for the most part, things that could fit in the large size candy box (like a Whitman's). I think the largest things we traded were what we called Nick dolls, which were popular then (they are the long haired troll dolls, ha).

Anyway, I thought I'd share this personal recollection with you because it was an enormously fun and positive thing for us young kids to do and you parents might want to try it as yet another alternative to TV, video games, charge card mentality etc. It also tends to promote a hobby and collecting spirit in kids at a young age. Best of luck and enjoy!