Santa Claus....

Today at ice skating a mom brought up Santa Claus wondering if we did it. Here are my thoughts on Santa Claus. I love the magic of Santa Claus.  I love the wonder in my child's eyes when she believes something special in the crazy world we live in. I find that same wonder for Jesus in her eyes.  I find no reason for not doing Santa for our family.  I did it with my boys and they enjoyed the years of believing.  They were never mad that I "lied" to them.  In reality I never once told them Santa was real.  If the question was asked I turned it back to them.

Here is the thing..... if you can keep the true meaning of Christmas alive in your house.  If you can keep Santa where he belongs a very small part of Christmas.  If you can teach your children to love Jesus and celebrate his birth. Then there is nothing wrong with Santa.

Now I know for each family the answer is different.  What is right for my family is not always right for yours.
I do have a couple of friends who don't do Santa and their children don't care they still believe.  Against it all they want to hang on to the wonder of it all.  These are very Christian homes.  So far one mom has embraced it and allows it all and the other is on the fence.  It was funny last year as Samantha's friends from one family were excited to give Samantha Santa.  One got a number for us to call Santa, they come up with ideas for the fun.

For our family its always been a celebration of Christ.  That is the true meaning of the season. Santa is second.  We have Santa bring 3 gifts to represent the 3 gifts Jesus received   We also give her a couple of gifts from us.  We keep it simple.  We are doing a curriculum for this Christmas season called the Truth is in the Tinsel.  I will do its own post another day. But here is what we do. I read a passage from the bible, we discuss it, she then makes an ornament for our tree that is based on that passage.  Its been so much fun.  We have made Mary, Joseph, decorated a cd to represent the song Mary sang worshiping God, a Star for Jesus the son and a few more so far.

We also learned what Hanukkah is about.  She made a menorah with her handprints and each day she adds the flame to the next candle with her fingerprint.

Travel the world for the holidays...

is a fun curriculum that I got off the internet.   So today we boarded our "plane" and visited Sweden... the plane took as all around the world until we landed in Sweden (the school room)

 Its really interesting learning about how other countries celebrate the Christmas Season.  On Dec 13 the youngest daughter is supposed to serve the family breakfast in bed.  Its a meal of coffee and buns. The girl will wear a crown of holly leaves and 7 yellow candles.  She also wears a white gown.  The boys of the family wear a big hat with stars on it and a white gown also.  Other girls in the family will dress in a white gown.  Samantha loved this idea.  So on Dec 13 she will put on her crown and gown and serve Steve and I in bed.  This is the Saint Lucia ceremony. 

Here she is making her crown...

 Then we made some other Sweden crafts the woven heart ornament and a red candle that they place in the window to let Jultomte (Santa Claus) know a child lives in the house.  He also resembles a gnome and not our American Santa. Which I love as my youngest son is afraid of gnomes... you might find a few around my house this Christmas Season.  Ha ha ha. I will let you in on a little secret... I have bought a super strong magnet the size of a bottle cap to stick on Nicks car when he is home on leave.  Since he was a teen we have this game going on where I leave gnomes around his room.  Ha ha ha Ok back to homeschooling. The children leave him porridge instead of cookies.

For people in Sweden they celebrate more on Dec 24 since they spend the day at church on Christmas day. The majority of the people belong the the Lutheran faith.

So Samantha earned her first stamp in her passport. I plan on doing a different country each day.  

I know its been a while

but I really haven't had much to post about.  We have been crazy busy lately with so many activities going on.  We went to Maryland for Thanksgiving. We did many crafts before the holiday.  Funny I can't seem to find where the pictures are on my computer.  We have dived into slime for science. We made goop and our own bouncy ball.  Here are some pictures if any are a repeat I am sorry.  

Christmas party at CD Rec... we took a hay ride in a parking lot.

 building our failure of a ginger bread house

 it was kind of funny when it fell apart

 Meet Lilly our newest member of the family She is such a cutie.

 and she puts up with Samantha

 our cute Santa strawberries...

 Racking leaves after the hurricane was lots of fun when she could jump in the piles

 making a melt wax picture

 bowling with the American Heritage Girls

 relaxing during free time

 A snow princess came to class this day....

 learning her cursive

 Her fish fishy died that day so in honor of him we made some paper fishes

 swim class learning to dive

 crazy fall weather before the storm

 snuggling up