The holiday season is approaching and it is the perfect time to create some fun Christmas crafts with your children. Sitting around and sharing in the joy of making Christmas crafts will bring you and your children closer together while you make wonderful Christmas memories with one another.
Crafts make wonderful decorations for your home; they also make great gifts that you can give them away to your friends and neighbors. Ask your child if there is a particular Christmas craft they would like to teach you how to do. Allowing your child to become the teacher is a wonderful way to boost their self-esteem as they will feel your support, love and encouragement along the way.
Families have been building strong connections through Christmas crafting since the early 18th century. Women typically made the crafts with their friends and many of these women taught their children how to make a few of the Christmas crafts. Children absolutely love craft time because it is a wonderful way for them to use their imagination and they receive a wonderful feeling of accomplishment when they are complete.
Bring your family together this year and decorate the Christmas tree. Instead of grabbing for the boxes of ornaments you have purchased from the store, decorate your Christmas tree with homemade decorations this year. Help your children make garland by stringing together strands of popcorn and cranberries or just popcorn. If they want, let them paint the popcorn different colors, this will give your Christmas tree a unique look.
As far as the ornaments go, you can have your younger children make some simple paper ornaments using cotton balls glued to cardstock to create snowmen. Help your children make some fun photo ornaments using glass balls and sticking a picture inside along with a little bit of tinsel. This is a cute way to decorate your tree. Some other ornaments you can use include stars, angels, boondoggle ornaments, milk bone ornaments and candy cane ornaments. This will be one Christmas memory your children will always remember and it might even turn into a fun Christmas tradition.
Another fun Christmas craft you can do as a family is decorating your Christmas stockings. You can create your stockings out of any material you desire or you can purchase the basic body of the stocking from any store during the holidays. Grab puff paints, fabric, glue, glitter and ribbon to decorate the stockings. Allow your kids to let their imaginations run wild as they decorate their own stocking. You can also purchase iron-on transfers if your children prefer to have cartoon characters on their stockings. Buttons, beads, lace and sequins are also great decorative elements to use on a Christmas stocking.
Spend some time together as a family in the kitchen and bake a bunch of different goodies. Gingerbread men are a lot of fun to bake and decorate, especially for your younger kids. Give them some frosting and edible decorations and let them have a good time. The best part about baking goodies is that you always get the fun job of eating them! Get a bunch of different cookie cutter designs for your kids so they can make angel shaped cookies, Santa Claus, reindeer and many other fun Christmas elements. Use food colors to turn the frosting different colors and get some sprinkles for your kids so they can add a little personality to their cookies.