Must Read Christmas Books!

Have you entered my current giveaway yet?

 One of my favorite ways to teach Hazel about Christmas is using books that share the true meaning of Christmas. I have shared some here previously, and I have been pinning them to a special board. Today I am going to share all of them with you. I have divided them into two categories: the ones in Biblical time and the ones in more modern time.

Biblical Times

1) The Christmas Story by Patricia Pingry I love The Story of Mary also by Patricia Pingry as well for this time of year. It has a little more details in it.

2) Asleep in the Stable by Will Hillenbrand is a wonderful story. It describes all the animals sleeping in the stable except the owls. The baby owl notices the baby sleeping in the manger and asks his mother about him. The mother explains who the baby is as well as Mary and Joseph and God.

3) Hare's Christmas Gift by Eleonore Schmid is a tale about a little, shy hare who awakes to see all the animals heading towards him. He begins to follow the crowd to see what is going on. They all surround a stable. Eventually the hare gets enough nerve to go in and see the babe lying in a manger. The baby calms him so much that he curls up and keeps the baby warm while they sleep together.

4) The Birds of Bethlehem by Tomie dePaola

5) Christmas in a Manger by Nola Buck is a board book about what each animal and person will do for the newborn baby in the stable. It ends with the baby and stating that He is the reason for Christmas Day.

6) The Cobweb Curtain: A Christmas Story by Jenny Koralek, William Barclay, and Pauline Baynes is a tale about a spider at a cave who sees the Holy family hiding from the soldiers and spins a web over the cave opening so they will not be discovered. It is a wonderful tale for the Escape to Egypt part of the story.

7) Three Wise Women by Mary Hoffman is a tale of three women in different places who see the star and drop what they are doing to follow it. Each brings the baby a gift of her own without realizing where they are going or why, but having the faith to know they must go.

8) Voices of Christmas by Nikki Grimes is a tale about the various people in the Christmas story. It has a line about each person and then has what the person might say or think. It even includes a neighbor in Nazareth. It gives lovely perspectives on the story.

9) Who Is Coming to Our House? by Joseph Slate

10) The Third Gift by Linda Sue Park is the story of myrrh. The tale is told by a young boy whose father is training him to harvest myrrh (sap from a special type of tree). His father lets him remove the biggest tear, as they call them. When they go to market to sell their tears, the spice market merchant calls them in to meet his special guests who have been waiting for them. The special guests are the wisemen. Eventually it is asked who the gifts are for and the young boy wonders why they would bring myrrh to an infant since it is used in funerals. This book answered so many questions I had about myrrh. I really enjoyed reading it and learning from it.

11) Little Owl and the Star by Mary Murphy

12) The Story of the Three Wise Kings by Tomie dePaola

More Modern Christmas Books that Teach the Christmas Message

1) An Early American Christmas by Tomie dePaola

2) God Gave Us Christmas by Lisa Tawn Bergron is another one of her books with Little Cub. I love this series because they explain so much of God and religious ideas in ways children can somewhat understand. This one of course covers Christmas and who invented it. As always there are lessons about how God loves all of us in it.

3) A Goodnight Christmas by Nola Buck goes through saying "Good night" to all the people and animals in the Christmas story and more as you realize it is a little boy saying it as he goes to bed on Christmas Eve.

4) The Night of Las Posadas by Tomie dePaola is a great story to show what another culture does and a little Christmas magic.

5) Angel Pig and the Hidden Christmas by Jan Waldron gives the true meaning behind Christmas. There is no money for gifts and the pigs are upset, but they learn the lesson that the best gifts do not come from a store.

6) The Birds of Bethlehem oops! That was in the one above!

7) Moritmer's Christmas Manger by Karma Wilson

8) The Sparkle Box by Jill Hardie is my new favorite Christmas book. I won it recently from Teach Beside Me. (She has some amazing giveaways going on still.) This book is about a young boy who sees a sparkly box on their mantle and asks his mother about it. She says it is a gift for all of them that they will add things to it and then open it on Christmas morning together. The boy sees a homeless man while riding in the car and asks his mother about him. He sees him again when they are leaving a store. The boy had picked out a pair of mittens for his class's mitten tree and a piece of candy for himself, but he gives both to the man and yells "Merry Christmas!" as he leaves. On Christmas morning the boy sees the box under the tree. When he opens it, the box is filled with slips of paper. On the paper are the things the family has done for others this Christmas season. The parents explain that this gift is for Jesus. The boy asks how it is for Jesus since it was a gift for others. Needless to say it brings home a wonderful message about charity.  

I also won with this book The First Christmas Night by Keith Christopher. It is another wonderful version of the Christmas story. You can read a review of it at Teach Beside Me: Christmas Books Review and Giveaway.

9) The Legend of the Candy Cane by Lori Walburg is an amazing story about a candy shop opening up in a small town. A stranger came and bought the shop and no one knew what it would be. One girl bravely knocked and asked if the stranger needed help. She was happy to see the boxes full of candy. Then she saw something she had never seen before, a candy cane. The shop owner tells her about the candy cane. How it looks like the shepherd's hook and a J for Jesus. Basically all the legends I have ever heard about it are in this book. The message however is that the candy cane represents a more important message. How God sent Jesus to save the world. The shopkeeper asks the girl to help him spread the message to everyone.

Now I am sure we will have more to share, but this at  what I have at this point. I am thinking maybe next year we will do a story Advent calendar. Hazel is loving the craft one this year though!

Sewing Leather Doll Clothes Review and Giveaway!!

Disclosure: I was sent samples of leather for free to write this review and use in my church event but was not compensated in any other way. All opinions are my own.

Today I am going to share my first experience with sewing with leather. I was approached awhile ago by Leather Hide Store and Kyson Leather to see if I would be interested in creating something with leather and reviewing it here. I struggle with what to make with leather. I started a Pintrest board on Leather Projects to get inspired. I was not sure if I wanted to make a bag, a purse, or something totally different. Then I decided to make Hazel's doll some leather clothes.

Now Hazel has asked Santa for a "Hazel" doll--a doll that looks like her. I found a Madame Alexander What a Doll doll with brown hair and brown eyes at KMart and it happened to be on clearance (which I did not realize when I picked it). You can see her above. I have not completely taken her out of the box yet so her hair will not get too messed up. I figured since she loves to change her dolls clothes and have them have purses, I would make her a leather jacket, purse and boots and I would make them bright pink since that is her favorite color. I figured since it would not take much leather to make this, I could make two and give one away to a lucky reader. Well, they loved this idea and also threw in a $25 gift certificate to go with it so the winner can experience working with leather as well.

Now while I was trying to decide what to do, Leather Hide Store sent me three pieces of remnants for my church's Night in Bethlehem which will be Saturday. One of the pieces was used to be a map of the journey Mary and Joseph took from Nazareth to Bethlehem. The other pieces and some scraps from the first piece will be used to decorate our Leatherworking Shop in our Marketplace. The Bethlehem Marketplace will have eight shops where a demonstration will be done or a craft will be made by the families visiting. The Leatherworking Shop will have leather lacing to make into bracelets, so we just needed something to help give it the leather feel and smell. All of us at my church are so thankful for this amazing donation.

While I was waiting for my magenta leather, I started looking for some patterns for doll clothes that might work with leather.  I found two McCall's patterns that had different things I liked. I luckily got them on sale at Joann Fabrics when they were 5 for $7. Then I talked to my mother who told me I needed to get special needles for my sewing machine. I found them at Joann Fabrics as well and while I was there I asked if I would need special thread. They suggested getting an upholstery or craft thread so it would be stronger. I found the perfect color in a denim thread and figured this should work.  I also did some research on line for suggestions when sewing with leather. World of Pineapple has some great leather sewing tips and tricks.

The magenta leather came and I could not wait to try sewing with it. The first thing I made was the two purses. I used the McCall's MP327 (the pattern pieces had the number 6669 instead). I bought some sequined appliques for them instead of trying to make the one the pattern had. I have to admit one of the hardest things to sew was the straps for the purses. Doll scale made it a bit harder to work with the thickness.

Doll in Giveaway Outfit

Then I started on the boots. I used McCall's MP325 (the pattern pieces had the number 6804 instead) for the boots and jackets. After making the four boots, I started the jackets. I intended to make the jackets identical, but I started following the wrong jacket instructions and missed sewing on the collar on one. Now some tips for working with leather. Copy the pattern pieces onto the wrong side of the leather. You cannot use pins since the holes will not go away. You can use clips like paperclips or clothespins. One of my favorite things was you did not have to finish the edges like you do with other fabrics.

Doll in Hazel's Doll Outfit

I grabbed one of Hazel's other 18-inch dolls to model the outfits for us since I have not taken her Christmas gift out of the box completely. Our plan is to have her new doll sleeping in a sleeping bag under her small tree in her room with the fancy dress hanging on the tree. I have to finish the dress and make the pajamas for the doll. I also want to make matching pajamas for Hazel. I found some cute gingerbread men flannel to make them.

Ok, back to my review. I have to say how wonderful it has been to work with  Leather Hide Store. They are a family run business and have been in business for eight years. They sell at Leather Hide Store website or on ebay as Kyson Leather. My experience with them is that they are a company that remembers what customer service is suppose to be. They will send you five free samples, and if those five do not work they will send you five more and this is without entering payment information. The quality of the leather they sent me was wonderful and I am so happy I had this experience. I expect I may have to get some more magenta leather to make a purse for Hazel so she can match her doll (my purse happens to be the same color too). So if you are looking for leather for a project, please check out Leather Hide Store. I know you will not be disappointed.

Now for our giveaway. You can enter to win one leather doll outfit which includes a pink leather jacket, pink purse and pink boots. (I made all of them and will admit they are not perfect, but I know any child would love them for her/his doll.) The clothes should fit most 18-inch dolls.  In addition to this, Leather Hide Store is adding a $25 digital gift certificate. To enter you need to follow my giveaway rules and follow the Rafflecopter. The giveaway ends on December 16th so I can get the outfit to you hopefully by Christmas depending on the mail!

 a Rafflecopter giveaway

Hope--First Week of Advent

So instead of a fairy tale today, I am going to share our plans for December and our first week of Advent theme which is hope. As I mentioned previously, this week is a bit crazy for me, so my schedule may be a bit off. I'm going to try to stick to it as much as possible, but my main focus is getting ready for our church's Night in Bethlehem. I will share more about that later on.

This December there is not a new author for the Virtual Book Club for Kids due to everyone's busy December schedule. Instead we thought we would promote our Jan Brett posts from last December. I shared Annie and the Wild Animals which is still a favorite in my house.

Source: By By Rei-artur pt en Rei-artur blog [GFDL, CC-BY-SA-3.0 
or CC-BY-SA-2.5-2.0-1.0], via Wikimedia Commons

For Around the World in 12 Dishes this month we are "visiting" Jamaica! I am very excited about this. We will be focusing on Christmas in Jamaica since I volunteered to do Jamaica for the Multicultural Kid Blogs Christmas in Different Lands on December 23rd. I am really excited because I found someone in Jamaica to help me with recipes and things. She is from Saturday Market: Pieces of Jamaica. This will make the posts much more authentic since I have never been to Jamaica and the closest thing I have is a doll from Jamaica that my grandparents brought me back as a child.

Last night our church had its annual Advent Workshop. Above are the crafts that we made. There were others as well including the always popular wreath making. Now two of the crafts were provided by Oriental Trading since I reviewed them here. A third craft is from them as well, but Hazel made it a little backwards so the Bible scripture is on the back and the treble clef is backwards. We also made a "gingerbread" nativity from graham crackers and gingerbread people, an Advent wreath with a metal form and cut greens and a paper chain Advent calendar. On the chains are questions to ask each day.

Since yesterday's door on Hazel's Advent calendar had the supplies for the mini Advent wreath, today's had the word hope and then we made a hope ornament.

Our first discussion was what does hope mean. Hazel did not know so Steve and I explained it to her. We lit the candles in her mini wreath and our new Advent wreath last night and did the readings on it. We had made some beeswax rolled candles for our normal Advent wreath, but I decided to use the ones with the cut greens this year.

So that is our start of Advent. We also began reading Advent Storybook by Antonie Schneider last night. It contains 24 stories to read before Christmas. My goal this month is to focus on the true meaning of Christmas. I hope you will enjoy our journey.

Advent Calendars -- Start of Advent

December first is the start of Advent this year. It seems fitting since most Advent calendars start on the first. But this year, the first is also the first Sunday in Advent when you light the first candle of the Advent wreath. I personally love Advent. It is a time to prepare. The church uses the color purple for Advent. We are preparing for the coming of Christ. Now my parents gave us a beautiful wooden Advent calendar a couple of years ago. The only problem is we have to fill it each year. This year I decided to go with a crafty theme. I always try to focus it on the nativity to make sure the true meaning is getting through to Hazel and that it is not about gifts and commercialism.

This year I am organizing a huge event at my church for next Saturday. It is called a Night in Bethlehem. We will have a live nativity (with real sheep) as well as a marketplace full of crafts for kids to make to see what it was like in Biblical time. My focus this week will mostly be on this, but I will be trying to get some posts up. Anyway, I needed to find some peg dolls for one of the crafts and discovered Casey's Wood Products. They have very reasonable prices for wood products and you can buy the wood projects by the individual. I bought some nativity figures for Hazel. I am using these this year in her Advent calendar with a few other added crafts.

I am going to let her decorate them if she wants to. However for the first I found this great miniature Advent wreath craft. I wanted to use purple candles so they would be like the ones we have in our big wreath, so I "painted" some white birthday candles with melted crayons. I saw how to do it on Catholic Icing: Make Pink and Purple Advent Candles.

The best part is that we had all the supplies at home. I invaded Steve's tool room for the nuts and of course the recycling bin for a lid.  I am going to let Hazel make it tomorrow. I just put it together for a quick picture.

Since the first candle is for hope, we will make a hope craft on the second day. For her  calendar I printed out the themes my church uses and put one in on each Sunday (or Monday for the first one) so we will have ornaments for each theme. Love and Peace are easy ones to find. We actually have a peace dove ornament that we made from salt clay a couple of years ago and I made a quick beaded heart ornament when Hazel was making beaded candy canes.

The hope and joy ornaments will be a bit harder. I picked up a joy rubber stamp at Joann the other day for $1. I may do some clay ornaments similar to what we did for our Christmas in Kenya craft with the stamp. For hope I am thinking about doing something like this snowball ornament on Just Crafty Enough but use the word hope instead of joy. I have some letter stickers and may try them instead of vinyl. I also love the idea of twig ornaments that you can see on First Home Love Life. If you want other ideas for ornaments and Christmas decorations you can see what I have pinned in my Christmas board.

Now for Hazel's Advent calendar I try to make the gifts tell the story of Christmas. I always start with an angel, so I bought some angel peg dolls. This is what will be in her door for the 3rd. We will make an angel from it and share it with you. The fourth will be the Mary figure (alternative craft at First School) and the fifth will be Joseph. Then on the sixth we will do another angel craft. I think we will be doing the Easy Paperclip Angel Ornament from Crafty Journal. Steve promised to bring home the paperclips for me since he has some at work and not at his desk at home. If you want other ideas for angel crafts, I have an Angels board. (I started this board when we were participating in an angel swap for inspiration.) I should also mention Activity Village has some alternative crafts for the entire Nativity including a nativity mobile.

For the next day we will do a donkey craft. Even though a donkey is not mentioned in the Bible it is in so many of the stories, that I like to include it. I bought these clothespins at Casey's Wood Products, but Oriental Trading also has a similar donkey craft. After the donkey we will do the star and then the sheep and shepherds. Then we will do the camels and wisemen. We will also make a popsicle stick manger. Finally on the 23rd we will make one of the simple nativity ornaments I have pinned and the 24th she will get the "manger" which Casey's Wood Products called the bathtub since they did not have any mangers left, I bought something that would work.

That is our plan for this year's Advent calendar. Another idea I had was inspired by the Christ the Savior is Born Advent Calendar on Sunlit Pages. I went through our old Christmas cards and used a fancy punch to punch out nice pictures and/or words. I took a picture of four that could be used to represent the Advent themes. The idea was to put numbers on the back and add strings and hang them in similar fashion to her Advent calendar. You would get a nice picture for each day.  Perhaps that will get done next year.

For today, this is all we are going to share. If you want more ideas for Advent calendars please check out my pins in my Advent board. There are many various ideas there! I would love to hear what you do for Advent. Happy Advent!!

Sharing Saturday 13-46

Thank you to everyone who shared with us last week! We had so many wonderful ideas shared. If you have not had a chance to visit them all I hope you will. I shared a few of the Thanksgiving posts on Thanksgiving. If you missed them you may want to check them out. Our top clicked for last week were Thanksgiving ones and it was a tie, so I am not going to share them here. However I spent the day decorating our house for Christmas, so I am giving you some Christmas features. Here they are.

1) From Racheous Lovable Learning: Christmas Fine Motor Playdough

2) From How Wee Learn: Christmas Sensory Bin and a Sticky Tree

3) From Crystal's Tiny Treasures: Wooden Fingerprint Ornaments

4) From Buggy and Buddy: Christmas Light Chalk Stencil Art for Kids

5) From Growing Book by Book: Elf on the Shelf Ideas- Read Books!

6)

For some reason I couldn't get this picture last week, but got it now. Sorry!
From Happy Hooligans: Button Christmas Tree Ornaments


  7) I cannot get a picture for this one, but you should check it out!
From The Connection We Share: Experiential Christmas Advent Calendars


Thank you to everyone who shared last week!! I hope you will join us and share again!! If you are featured here, please feel free to grab a featured button to display proudly on your blog. 

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From Your Hostess:
This week we shared some cranberry decorations, our final Native American Cinderella, some more Thanksgiving books and crafts, a look at Native Americans with crafts and books--especially Squanto and the Wampanoag, a Thanksgiving Round-Up from last week while I spent time with my family!

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