Years ago my mother-in-law bought up a ton of Christmas crafting type things on clearance after Christmas. She was going to use them for another project, but the next year decided to hand them over to our crew instead. We made good use of them for many years, but last year when we used up the last of them, we realized just how much we were going to miss our lovely hodge-podge of crafts.
This year, when I loaded our Thanksgiving Stockings, I included some foam crafts I picked up at WalMart for very little money. The kids loved it and even the adults got in on the crafting!
Now, some of you are probably thinking how cheesy and cheap these sorts of things are, and I totally agree, but with 6 children, I cannot possibly plan and execute and then keep forever and ever exquisite Christmas crafts. These come {and go} with no guilt!
There are a lot of wonderfully simple options for keeping little hands busy crafting this Christmas season. We do everything from coffee filter snowflakes to wallpaper angels (same template as the paper plate angel here, only we use our stash of wallpaper samples). A couple of times we purchased some of the easy bulk crafts from Oriental Trading and every now and then I manage to find a great after-season deal at one of our local stores. Sidetracked Sarah has an ebook 25 Days of Easy Christmas Crafts free to subscribers and Pinterest is full of ideas this time of year!
Once again, I want to impress upon you that it doesn’t have to be fancy to make memories.
and in case you are wondering…
Yes, those are Santa Clauses in the photo and no, we don’t do Santa around here. My children know who Santa was named after and they know the story behind St. Nicholas, but that’s as far as it goes. However, there is a Santa head that plays Jingle Bells hanging on my wall. It’s from my childhood. You can see a similar one here: Vintage Santa Head (yes, they called it “vintage.”) There are also a few Santas on the Christmas tree from my husband’s childhood. We place it all in the proper context and don’t get too uptight about it.
What Christmas crafts do you do with your children? I’m always on the lookout for new ones…as long as they are guilt free! 😉
Sidetracked Sarah says
My kids love the foam crafts, too!! Thanks for linking to me. 🙂