Christmas is also called the Feast of the Nativity, and is one of the most important festivals of the world and India. The festival commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ and is celebrated every year on December 25 by most people. Do you know, some Eastern Christian Churches celebrate Christmas according to their old Julian calendar, so for them Christmas corresponds to January 7. So, we have some friends from Macedonia and Ethiopia, who have a Christmas time different from our Indian Christmas!
Christmas is celebrated both religiously and non-religiously by billions of people, both Christians and non-Christians. While the religious customs include events and activities related to the particular communities and churches, the modern cultural celebration of Christmas all over the world includes exchanging greeting cards and gifts; Christmas decorations; eating cakes, puddings and feasts; and Santa Claus related themes.
The colourful and giving spirit of Christmas is perfect for celebrations with children to create some opportunities for fun-filled learning activities. Here are some ideas.
1. Story Telling
There are a large number of books available for kids to know about Jesus Christ and a lot of fun activity books, sticker books that are guaranteed to keep them busy for hours. Here is one ACK comics book, “Jesus Christ”, that my child liked to read. There is a lot of history, folklore and moral teachings that can mixed into Christmas related story telling, depending on the age of the child.
And these are some of the best Christmas themed activity books for small children.
2. Christmas Art & Crafts
Christmas trees, decorations, Santa and his team, all are fun things to make. Here is one easy drawing tutorial of a Christmas tree. It is fun to try, and the star can also be made by a plastic stencil or by a grown-up, while the child proceeds to draw the body of the tree. At the end, they will love to colour it because the decorations allow the use of all sorts of colours. You can get creative with decorations with pom-poms or sequins or buttons.
This is an easy way to make a tree using ice cream sticks, cord and pompoms.
This hand and foot print Reindeer is especially suitable for small kids.
And a hand print Snowman!
An easy-peasy way to make a reindeer with toilet paper rolls can be found here.
And this one is super easy, for small kids:
These are some nice Christmas decoration craft ideas-
Christmas tree crafts are countless, but we like these for small children:
3. Learning Activities
As with every event, Christmas is a great opportunity to weave together learning opportunities and festival traditions and activities. Christmas related new words like decorations, angels, hollies and pine cones are not everyday things for people of many countries. Word or letter games based on these, or numeracy activities based on the bright and cheerful Christmassy icons are fun to do. Make up mazes where Santa has to get to his sleigh or get to your child to deliver the gifts.
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4. Musical Christmas Activities
Christmas has a strong tradition related to music, like carols, instrumental music and many children’s songs. The 2 most familiar songs related to Christmas that are easy to learn are Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
Other old but very popular songs to play to get into the festive season are these:
5. Performance Arts
Christmas is also a time for theatre activities, and there are many stories that can be enacted according to the kids’ ages. I would highly recommend the story The Nutcracker for reading and then enacting parts of it for fun in any way you can! It is not necessary that you invest a lot in costumes or props. Improvise and have fun. These three books (same story) are for different age groups, check them out.
Get the book at Amazon for different age levels:
So those were some ideas for spending the holidays with your children with creative fun. We hope that you have a beautiful, peaceful, safe and happy holiday time with your family. Merry Christmas!
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