How To Handle The Kids During The Christmas Break

For many parents the kids will be home for close to two and half weeks during the Christmas school break. I know many of you are wondering what can I do that is fun, creative, educational and won’t tear up my house. I have some suggestions from a great book that I pull out each year. It’s called, The Twelve Blessings of Christmas, by T. J. Mills. I love this book; it explains the heartfelt meaning of Christmas, contains numerous fun activities for kids that reinforce in a concrete way what Christmas is truly about.

I like to invite the cousins, nieces and nephews over and do several of the activities. One of my favorites is making Sand Art Brownies. It resembles the sand art projects kids do in school, but it is actually the ingredients for brownies, including decorative M&Ms, pecans to reflect the holiday colors packaged in a quart jar that kids can give away to relatives and teachers as gifts. This is a genuine recipe and the kids learn the importance of measuring exact proportions of a 1/3 cup of cocoa, 2/3 cup of sugar, etc. so that their brownies will come out tasty and delicious.

Other projects include recipes for Birdseed Balls (it teaches kids to take care of our fine feathered friends), Pomander Christmas tree Ornaments, and Jesus’ Birthday Cake (it teaches the kids about forgiveness, redemption, and everlasting life). Community projects include visiting nursing homes, Christmas caroling in the neighborhood, etc.

This colorful book also has some wonderful poems like this one written by T.J. Mills:

Tomorrow stands before us now
What will the New Year bring?
It brings the song that’s in our hearts
And the tune we choose to sing.

In spite of all the negativity, yes, there is more good, love and peace in the world. We as a human race have much to be happy about. The gift of life and how we choose to sing our song determines our destiny. We can be a blessing to others and a Winner at life- it’s all in our hands!

Stay Blessed!

Joyce