create (with kids)

It was really fun to see Christmas through the eyes of a two-year-old this year. Santa lived, reindeer flew, and magic abounded. I had a long list of traditions I wanted to begin, finally settling on a few that fit into our time & left my sanity intact. We decorated cookies, drove around to see Christmas lights, snuggled to "Frosty the Snowman," and painted our own wrapping paper.

"O Christmas Tree" Potato Prints

Wrapping Presents

This was our best Christmas project this year. I started buying presents in July because I knew an August baby was going to make my holiday much more interesting. I was inspired by an earlier project this year- we sent a package to a college friend & I let Isia paint the box. Then we both drew on top of the paint. It made the post-lady smile. So I thought how cute- and thrifty- would it be to use up my brown craft paper to wrap presents, then paint or color them? Some presents ended up more decorated then others- depending on her attention span of the day- but all had a dash of color. There were also Christmas tree potato prints onto newspaper when a friend came to play. I used to cut a potato just in half and then use both halves, but I tried something different this time and it worked much better. I just shaved off a fifth of a long side, which left me more room to make a deeper image and- more importantly- a larger end for little chubby hands to grasp. Of course, the stamping lasted for five minutes before it became finger-painting & somehow they both ended up with red noses :)

Final thought, in order to make the painting more "Christmas-y" I limited her palette to red & green, but I might rethink this for next year. Especially as she's sure to have more opinions as a three-year-old. Why can't a present be yellow or purple or...? And I'd like to include glitter next year- I was a bit nervous of a glitter-encrusted living room if a tantrum begun. I'll try to be braver next year!