December 16, 2006--Living Nativity

Yesterday was my turn to host our homeschool group co-op activity. We are in the Love/Generosity unit now in Konos, and it worked out great because we are studying Christmas now. We had a Christmas party at our house yesterday. We started out with a gift exchange. Each child had made a present for another child whose name they drew at the Thanksgiving play a couple of weeks ago. The requirement was that each gift had to be homemade. Some of the presents were really creative, and some were really simple, but they were all hand-crafted. They ranged from homemade finger puppets to a jar of pretzels. The jar of pretzels was from Timothy. He's only two, and isn't that crafty yet, but he did put all the pretzels into the jar by himself. After that we had a potluck and we got to eat all the goodies that the kids had helped make all week--fudge, chex mix, hot cocoa mix, etc, as well as real food like meatloaf and mashed potatoes. There was so much food! I ate more than I needed to. After dinner, the kids put on a live nativity. We live right by a highway, so we set up a stable by the road and the kids took turns being Mary, Joseph, angels, shepherds, and wise men. People driving by honked and waved, and one car even stopped to take pictures. It was even nice weather for December--temperatures in the 50's. We couldn't have asked for nicer weather. Here is the entire nativity cast: