Sunday, January 12, 2014

Wrapping Up the Christmas Season

We certainly did continue our Christmas celebrations all throughout the 12 days of Christmas this year!

Last Friday evening our homeschool group gathered for a Christmas dinner and mini-pageant.

The kids worked on crafts.

We all enjoyed a yummy potluck dinner.


The kids decorated cookies for dessert.


We told the Christmas story.


Lots of kids and parents worked together to "act out" the 12 Days of Christmas song.

Lovely ladies dancing!


Several families recited poems or sang songs.

We played "Put Baby Jesus in the Manger."
We even had some professional entertainment!
"Rated E for Egolf" performed some carols.

 The next evening, we gathered with some friends for our 2nd Annual Epiphany Party. It was a super fun evening which included a pizza dinner, King Cake, crafts, games, and visiting.

More crafts!
The kids all decorated little gift boxes for Baby Jesus.
They whispered prayers into their boxes and presented them to Baby Jesus in the Nativity scene.

They made some ornaments with crowns, gifts, and stars.

We played "Pin the Crown on the King."

We listened to "The Story of the Three Wise Kings" by Tomie dePaola.
We opened Christmas "poppers."

We had fun wearing the crowns from the poppers.
Another craft.... making the camels and kings with handprints/fingerprints.

We played a fun game.

 On Christmas morning, a tower of 12 gifts appeared in our family room.... one for each day of the season. They were gifts for the family. It was fun to open them up throughout the season.
Here's a glimpse at some of them  ----

 In addition to the basic 12 books, we had two new books about the 12 Days of Christmas. I particularly like this one, which came from Five*Below ---


This beautiful set of 12 Days of Christmas ornaments came from Hobby Lobby.

This "family rules" graphic is going to be put in our hallway as we come down the stairs.

We've had a lot of fun already with this dinner time game.

The grand finale gift was a Snap*Circuit*Lights set. These sets are awesome! The boys have been making some really cool things with this one. It was a great way to wrap up our December "LIGHT" unit.

And so yesterday we took down the tree and most of our other Christmas decorations. We had a good week getting back into heavy-duty schoolwork. We celebrated joyfully and fully and now we're happy to be settling into some more Ordinary Time.

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