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Thursday, December 17, 2015

Santa, A symbol of Jesus Christ (Great teaching help for young children!)


Santa, A symbol of Jesus Christ (Great teaching help for young children!)


So, I came across this this past year, and loved loved loved this because I had actually been wanting to explain to my kids a more deeper meaning of Christmas, in relation to Santa...to keep that christmas spirit alive too. I came across it again today and didnt want to forget to post it, right as the season is taking place :) I felt such excitement as I found that someone else had wanted to do the same in teaching their children and even has a more complete list than I had compiled...about the similarities of Christ and Santa. So I feel I need to share this, to pass along such a treasure of a find, as I have felt it to be.

 A way we can keep Christ in our hearts and minds and the sole reason for this Holiday!

-Here it is-

The Symbols of CHRISTmas
By Dana

"This year we've been working to emphasize to our 4 littlies the gift of Christ in our lives during the Christmas season, instead of focusing on being good so Santa will bring presents. Still, Santa's name has been popping up more than I would wish. One night as I was getting into bed I had an idea that I quickly wrote down. We used it as our lesson for Family Home Evening last night and it went over really well!

First, I held up a picture of a door I drew on a piece of paper. This door was covering a picture behind it.  I said, "Pretty soon we might have a special guest visit our house. You never know! I'm going to give some clues that describe this person and you guess who it is." The clues included:

  • he sees you when you're sleeping. He knows when you're awake. He knows if you've been bad or good.
  • he has a beard and a kind face
  • he spent his life giving to others
  • he's often pictured in red and/or white clothes
  • he loves little children
  • he gives the very best gifts
  • you can never see him, but you can feel him
  • he gives us a wonderful, special warm feeling
  • he can get into our homes even if the doors are locked
  • he has special, wonderful powers
  • we want to give gifts back to him, but he doesn't need anything we could buy; he just wants us to give to other people. (My kids have been talking about giving a present to Santa.)
  • I ended with, "He encourages us to be good so we will be ready when he comes."


The kids all excitedly shouted "Santa!" Then I had the youngest come and open the door to welcome our guest into our home.

Santa A symbol of Jesus Christ (Great teaching help for young children!)

(Christ Knocking at the door)
We used this image from the Gospel Art Book. (You could use any number of pictures, including Christ in a Red Robe, The Second Coming, Christ and Children Around the World, etc. I just made sure he was wearing red and white.)

The kids all gasped in amazement that I was actually describing Jesus - there are so many similarities! We discussed how each description applied to both Jesus and Santa, and then we talked about how Santa is actually a symbol for Jesus, and everything we love about Santa is really everything we love about Jesus. We can be reminded of Jesus through many different symbols during the Christmas season, and we mentioned a few - candy canes, giving gifts, stars on the tree, etc.


We looked at a few more pictures of Jesus and even a picture of Santa kneeling at the manger to discuss how Jesus is the greatest gift. It was a very enjoyable and memorable lesson. Now the youngest keeps wanting to open the door and let Jesus in - and we let him!"

Thanks so much Dana for your help in creating such a useful and wonderful Post!

Hope you all will enjoy using this for your Kids/family every Christmas Season too <3


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Tuesday, November 3, 2015

DIY Eclectic Napkin rings

Need something fun for
your Dining table this year?

Check out these awesome Eclectic Napkin rings!!







made these like three years ago?
...super cheap and fun to make!

DIY Eclectic Napkin rings

All you need is:
HOT GLUE, BEADS, & CURTAIN RINGS!

DIY Eclectic Napkin rings

Whats fun is that you can use any variety of bead colors and types for this project, as well as any color shower rings. I went with some clear ones beacuse I was looking for a kind of softer color to go with the more fun and colorful 'boho-chic' styled beads.

DIY Eclectic Napkin rings

I really love the fun look and beautiful colors. 
Turned out great and it was way too easy!

DIY Eclectic Napkin rings

DIY Eclectic Napkin rings

Here are a bunch of different shots to see the different shapes and color combinations that are brought together when used all together to fill your table settings...


DIY eclectic napkin rings

DIY Eclectic Napkin rings

Personally I love these colors for any Holiday table setting!
 Gives it a fun vintage touch :D
DIY Eclectic Napkin rings

What do you think?!

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Seasonal Dry-Erase Coloring Book (Free Printable coloring pages!)


I made these books a couple years ago when my oldest son started to color, because I wanted some more fun festive and quiet activity ideas. I added some other new pages I came across this year, and thought I would share the collection of my favorites from around the internet world (so far) with you! 







My mom-in-law made us some awesome church themed ones and some learning ones that my kids have loved using in church, and so I of course loved them too because it kept them QUIET, BUSY, LEARNING, and then EASY CLEAN UP for me...as well as RE-USABLE time and time again. So I wanted to make some of my own and figured a Seasonal one would be awesome and fun all year round. Not only to learn the seasons, but also add some extra fun around the holidays ;)

 If you didn't catch all those awesome reasons to make your kids one of these books...here they are below + more!

  1. Quiet
  2. Busy
  3. Learning
  4. Easy Clean-up
  5. Reusable
  6. Great GIFT idea
  7. Great for Travel/Portable
  8. great for wide range of ages
  9. Can hand out to kids in many settings (school, church, play group, parties, holidays...) *keep a binder of your collection and just make copies of the ones you want and the number you need and you can always have some festive ones on hand for whatever event that comes along!
  10. Can keep dry-erase crayons in the binder in a binder pencil pouch (keeps everything in one place)
  11. Doesn't cost a whole lot. 


All of these things you can get at the dollar store, unless you opt to getting some more sturdy page protectors (as I have done). 

Since you do want it to hold up for some time (dollar tree ones I have gotten in the past are the best quality for this kind of thing, but can still work)

Items Needed:

  • Binder
  • dry-erase crayons ( come with a rag to wipe away)
like these from oriental trading.com for 3.89
or just go grab yours at the dollar tree!





Here are the links to the sites where I collected my favorite seasonal Coloring pages to make my dry-erase book! 

Some extra ones also added at the bottom :)




January











February












March










April













May







June/July/August












and this Popsicle picture!








Sept/Oct/Nov.








This site has some really CUTE ones and ones
 that are also great for a little bit of fun learning too!

The 3 I chose were the ones below, on pages 1, 3, and 5:

Pg 1


Pg 3

Pg 5





Winnie the pooh and tigger


Found on parents.com












My favorite Free Printable Sites used for this project are:



The other sites used can be seen when you click on the link below the photo!



Thanks for the fun free prints!




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