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Motoring Through the Holidays


CHRISTMAS PRESENT SPOILER ALERT!!!  GRANDPARENTS DO NOT READ THIS!!!!!

As I’m sure everyone has noticed by the appearance of trees, lights, and holiday music, it’s that time of year again.  I, for one, LOVE Christmas time!  As soon as Halloween I open up the Amazon wishlists that I have for all of my family members and start buying Christmas presents.  By the way, the Amazon wishlist is amazing if you haven’t tried it.  All year long people mention things or you see things and think “I have to remember to get so-and-so that movie/book/keepsake for Christmas (or whatever holiday you celebrate).”  But when the pressure of Christmas time rolls around, you’ve long since forgotten what you wanted to get everyone and start to panic.  I just go onto Amazon year round and add things to a hidden wishlist (I have the kids’ wishlists listed publicly mostly so my parents and in-laws can see what the kids want for birthdays, Christmas, Valentines Day, Grandparents were thinking about you day and every other occasion that they think of to spoil the kids).  This year my husband has begged me to make mine public for his sake too, so he can have an easy time shopping.  I spoil him, I know.  So come holiday time I have a ready made list from which to get presents and with Amazon prime shipping is free.  Now they have ‘Gift Organizer’ where you can track what you give people and what you want to give them in the future and dates for birthdays and stuff and supposedly it will recommend gifts for people once it knows what they like, but I haven’t tried that yet.  Ok, my non-paid Amazon service announcement is over now.

The reason I love Christmas time so much is that I love giving people presents.  It really is fun to think of someone you love and try to find something to surprise and delight them.   When I was a kid and my parents were explaining (ANOTHER SPOLER ALERT KIDS) the truth about Santa, what they told me was that giving a gift from Santa is akin to giving a gift anonymously and that Jesus loves that on his birthday we give each other presents for the joy the other person gets without wanting credit for ourselves.  Since that is hard for little kids to understand, we say the gifts are from Santa instead of saying they are anonymous.  Until I left for college my family would always get each other gifts from ourselves (to show we care) and gifts for each other from Santa, to enjoy the spirit of selfless giving.  Hopefully it will be many, many years before I tell that to my kids but I think that’s what I’m going to tell them too when the time comes.

I figure that holiday time is the perfect time to have some fun activities for the kids that work on their fine and gross motor skills.  So I have to admit that I have used the phrases ‘fine motor skills’ and ‘gross motor skills’ many times without actually having a succinct definition of either, so I looked it up.  Developing fine motor skills means that you are working on the ability to successfully use the small muscles in your hands, thumbs, and fingers as your mind desires.  By that I mean that you can think of what you want your hands to do, and they can do it accurately.   It’s that coordination that is the reason many people use the terms hand-to-eye coordination and dexterity as synonyms for fine motor skills.  Therefore, fine motor skills help you to write, button your clothes, knit, and importantly use your computer to surf for fun blogs.  Gross motor skills involve controlling the large muscle groups and the body as a whole.  These are necessary to walk and climb, and interestingly I read that it is considered a gross motor skill to increase your attention span.

FINE MOTOR SKILLS - DRAWING

This year, in addition to the store bought presents, I wanted to give my parents and in-laws a present from the kids, made by the kids.  We’ve already done handprints and painted ornaments so I wanted to do something different.  One of my friends has a neat idea - she gives her parents a different painted item every year so that eventually her parents will have a full set of dishes that her son painted over the years.  I decided to have the kids make canvas paintings for their grandparents this year, mostly because our families live out of town, and shipping ceramics can be tricky, especially when the damage is irreparable.

Before you panic, I did not pull out acrylic or oil paints for the kids.  You can actually make great canvas pictures with crayons in 3 easy steps:

1.     Have the kids draw their pictures on the canvas.



2.     Cover the canvas with wax paper, put it on the ironing board, and iron it


3.     Tack it (if you need to – I bought the canvas pre-hung) and enjoy.

This whole Christmas keepsake took us all of 10 minutes to make 4 total (1 from each girl to give to each set of grandparents)!

FINE MOTOR SKILLS – DECORATING

In addition to creating our Masterpieces, we also made our annual gingerbread creation.  Last year we made a gingerbread train.  This year, we’re making a gingerbread tree at the behest of my oldest.  For the record, I wanted to make a gingerbread princess castle, but she was insistent that we make a boring old tree.  Since this craft is supposed to be all about family time, I begrudgingly agreed to make a tree instead.  The nice thing about making a gingerbread tree is that there wasn’t really any parts that the kids couldn’t do themselves.  If we had built the castle that I wanted to do, I would have built in and the kids would have just decorated it.

Bree sorted and then stacked the cookies, while I dropped a dollup of frosting on top of each cookie so they’d stick together and then we decorated/ ate.




MMM!  How many weight watchers points is a squirt full of frosting?

GROSS MOTOR SKILLS – DANCING

One of the best, and most easily annoying, things about Christmastime is Christmas music.  I decided to blare it and dance the afternoon away with the kids.  In order to have fun but also work on gross motor skills, I instituted a dance game.  During each song I would pick some kind of dance and encourage the kids to copy me.  Since my gross motor skills are limited as it relates to dancing, I could use the work too.  After a few minutes I yell out one of the kids names and they lead the dancing.  It was kind-of funny to see the kids dance styles and how different they are already. 

Abigail, when it was her turn to lead, mostly did some sort of spinning, usually with her arm up as if she was ballroom dancing with a boy.  She also did what we call “Happy Feet” which is basically running in place, but most of the time Abigail opted for slower movements.  On Abby’s turns, we rocked back and forth, spun slowly, clapped, and laid on the floor.  This is totally in line with her preference in music, which tends towards what will become Easy Listening music (but is now still baby tunes).  I think this is interesting since Abigail is my non-stop energy, fearless child whereas Briana tends to be more cautious...except when you turn on the tunes apparently.

Briana on the other hand likes extreme dancing.  Galloping ruled the day, but she also did a lot of jumps, runs, and shakes of the whole body or just individual body parts, and kicks.  She also liked to “shake a booty” which she got from my mother-in-law and “flap our pteranodon wings” or “stomp with our big stomping dinosaur feet. Roooaaar!” which she got from Dinosaur Train, one of her favorite tv shows.  Although she also listens to the baby music, her favorite songs are more fast-paced songs like the Laurie Berkner Band’s Monster Boogie and Ice Cream Cone (vs. Abby’s favorites on that cd – In the Clouds and There’s A Little Wheel A-Turnin’ in My Heart). 

I think it’s great that we all like to do different dances because it gives us a chance to work on different skills and I try to pick things we hadn’t done before like side steps, squats, and my own brand of dancing which is a treat to behold for anyone who would want to blackmail me.

We crawl, spin, Happy Feet, jump, wiggle, flap, and everything else we can think of for a good hour.  That had to work off a few squirts of frosting, right?

*** 
If you’re looking for other crafting ideas for your kids this year, this website had lots of cute ideas:

http://familycrafts.about.com/od/giftstomake/tp/HomeMadeGiftIdeas.htm

Happy Holidays!  I’ll be back after the New Year.

<3 Pedigreed Housewife

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