We recently saw the new move Santa Claus 3. We've now seen all three of the Santa Claus movies and thought each one was enjoyable even though Santa doesn't come to our house. Now, if you invite Santa to your house every year, we will certainly join in your shreaks of joy and early morning Christmas Day excitement. We will be the last people to tell you not to include Santa in your festivities. In fact, there have been numerous moments after observing squealing, jumping up and down children that we wondered if the decision we made was the best.
But, in the Scott household Santa is not invited on Christmas Eve. It's one of those parenting decisions that came up before we had children. Since we did not want to base a tradition on a lie leaving our children to wonder if we also lie to them about other things they were led to believe, we decided we would not "do the Santa thing." Having said that, we also did not want our children to grow up feeling as though they were left out of a childhood fun memory because of our Christian parental beliefs. Also, both my husband and I came from households that enjoyed the tradition of Santa. I don't know how my husband handled finding out that Santa really was his parents delivering gifts, but I took it well since my mother sat me down and lovingly explained the true story of St. Nicholas and how she and my dad wanted to carry on that tradition by giving their children gifts each year - Because their love was so great for us - Just like God's love was great in St. Nicholas' heart to give as he gave so many years ago.
So, we still have a living room filled with presents on Christmas morning. We still bake cookies and pretend to leave them out for Santa (after one daughter insisted) even though my daughter who insists upon doing this knows where the gifts truly come from. On Christmas morning, the children awake to a room filled with gifts, but they know who to thank and that the reason we give the gifts is because of the gift of eternal life that Jesus gave to us through coming as a baby in a manger, growing up, living a sinless life, dying on a cross and raising to live forever at the right hand of the Father, our God in heaven. That's what we believe.
Because of what we believe, we are left to be filled with joy, so we celebrate just about everything there is to celebrate. We celebrate St. Nicholas Day on December 6, we celebrate Hanukkah because we believe strongly in passing on our Jewish Heritage to our children and how it ties to the prophecies fulfilled in Jesus; and we celebrate Christmas. Though, there won't be any winter solstice dance, we do celebrate winter. Partially because it is the day my husband and children's daddy was born.
Today we celebrated winter and the coming of Christmas by making edible snow globes. Back to the mention of Santa Claus 3. In the movie, they portrayed snow globes as part of the magic. Only the ones we made, you can eat - Well, you can eat all but the actual plastic clear dome. And, if I had to do over again, I would choose different decorations for the inside.
But, we started with a chocolate snowflake circle as the base
We used edible glitter & an edible clear sparkly gel frosting to hold everything together. Inside we rolled out and colored with food coloring a mixture of gum paste that we purchased at a craft store in the baking section. The rest just included the children cutting out shapes and placing them inside their globes and then adding some snowflake sprinkles and putting it all together.
They were fun to think about, create and spend time doing with the children. But, like always, inside my head is pictured these beautiful perfect works of art. Here's how ours turned out:
No comments:
Post a Comment