December flew by. It was a little ridiculous! It felt like I woke up and all of a sudden it was Christmas.
For preschool I just wanted to focus on the life of Christ. I went out and bought a bunch of cute little board books about Jesus. We have an elf stuffy from the dollar store appropriately named “Elfie” who brings a treat for the girls each morning in December. I wrapped each book carefully and had Elfie “deliver” them to the girls one at a time.
We had a lot of fun reading the books. In the mornings we would open the book, read it, and sing Christmas songs.
We also had our church Christmas party right at the beginning of the month which was incredible. The primary kids dressed up as shepherds and angels and sang for everyone up on the stage. I didn’t think Millie would go up because she is usually pretty shy, but she did! As soon as the curtains opened she walked out in front of everyone and started calling out “MOM! MOM! WHERE ARE YOU?!” I ran up and asked her if she wanted to come down or stay and sing with the other kids. She chose to go back with the other kids. One of the little boys whose family lives close to us helped her. So that was very sweet. Halfway through the program Millie hid behind the people playing Mary and Joseph but at least it wasn’t too disruptive. I was so proud of her for being brave and going up!
We have a professional storyteller in our congregation who read some Christmas books to the children. She had them singing along and the kids were infatuated! Millie loved it so much she recreated it all month at home. She would grab a stack of books and put them next to a chair and lay blankets around it.
Elfie also brought lots of winter crafts. We did playdoh Christmas cookies and snowmen. Millie painted a bunch of ornaments from the dollar store too.
One of my favorite crafts was making a manger out of a paper bag. It was a super cute decoration and Millie got to use scissors to make the hay so she was happy!
I also found the cutest idea on Pinterest which was to “make a soft bed” for baby Jesus. I sculpted a baby and a little manger out of polymer clay and cut up a bunch of twine to look like hay. Every time someone did an act of service we put a piece of hay under baby Jesus to make His bed more comfy. I hope that it helped Millie make the connection that when we serve each other we are serving Jesus.
We also did the Super Simple printable advent calendar which had a cute video for the girls to watch each day in December. They looked forward to that each day.
In the future I would like to choose different countries and learn about how they celebrate Christmas (or other holiday). I think it would be so fun. It would be a lot of preparation though. We will see. I for sure will wait until the girls are older because of the work it will take on my part.
Overall it was a fun month! It felt like we did a pretty good job focusing on Christ and we spent a lot of time together.
Our Best Rife 