My Christmas Party ...

For a couple of weeks, I wanted to have some children from our church over to have a Christmas Party. One thing after another occurred and now the time was almost gone. So yesterday, in a day's time literally, I flew into gear to try to get everything together with the first thing of seeing if anyone could come. I had a few crafts in mind for them to do and this took most of my time pulling it together. Five beautiful, wonderful children were invited and all came! All of the project pictures are of my examples. I couldn't take pictures and teach at the same time. Wish you could have seen their beautiful finished projects.


The first thing we did was stamp some snowflakes on a small white bag in light blue and put it aside. I didn't tell them what we were going to do with it at the time so it kept some wondering about what in the world I was going to do.


We made a Christmas ornament next. They stamped a large snowflake and cut and layered it on three pieces of cardstock. Holes were punched at the top with ribbon attached for hanging and a small gem was placed in the center of the snowflake. They all turned out real cute.

Then we stopped for dinner and had pizza and Cokes. They gathered around on the floor and looked at the nativity scene I had sitting beside me as I read them a non-traditional Christmas story about the birth of Christ as "possibly" seen in the eyes of the innkeeper. Afterwards, I directed their attention to the manger scene on the wall. We discussed how special the things were that God chose to bring about His perfect plan of the birth of our Savior; like the star, the angel, the manger, etc. We went back to the dining room where we decorated-earlier made-cupcakes with coconut, chocolate chips, red and white peppermint sprinkles, and holly shaped candies. The cupcakes were made using the confetti cake mix and we talked about how Christmas was Jesus' birthday and that this was a party for Him. Then they were to decorate a cupcake to put in their snowflake bag and take home with them.

Now it was time to do the main project, the Santa photo holder. (The shoulder, table, water bottle, etc. is a picture in the holder.) This cute little holder was made using a medium sized binder clip (a larger size would have been better but couldn't find them). The "pinchers" were tied together tightly with ribbon to keep it closed. This held the photo. I took a few pictures at the beginning of the night, went to the back and printed them, so they could leave with a picture in their photo holder. The Santa is entirely punched with Stampin' Up! punches: word window, circle punches, square scallop and the trio flower. The last one was used for the beard and hat topper. Glitter was put on the topper and the beard. They all turned out so cute...but glitter sure makes a mess! Glad I used a throw away tablecloth; sure made cleaning up easy!

At the end, everyone went home with a gift from me. I had a bag full of goodies for each of them. They could put their little projects in there, also. Look at the pictures but pardon the poor quality. I loved every minute of it. But mostly, I feel like I have been blessed greatly by God to have had this opportunity to spend with each and every one of these children. They are very special to me!!! Thank you, parents, for giving me the best gift this year!