Dear Santa

This mother’s Christmas list to Santa is just wonderful, so I wanted to share.

I hope you all have a lovely Fourth Advent and Christmas.

~Annemarie

Friday Links

It’s Third Advent this weekend! Are you on track? Behind? Going bonkers bananas, as Lucy likes to say? Did you crash and burn without MOMs yesterday, like I did?

Here is a really great blog post on toddlers and the lack of silver bullet for parenting them. Goodness gracious, did I need to read this. Toddlers be crazy, yo.

This article isn’t quite as calming. It’s yet another addition to the rhetoric on children, toys, gender, and marketing, and it takes the view that trying to create a gender-neutral world for children is impossible. The conversation is important, but it’s obvious that the work is still not over, since although the author says that girls’ and boys’ play needs to be treated equally, she still dismisses all girls’ play as house, dolls, and princesses, whereas boys play with blocks/lego, balls, and roughhouse with each other. To me, that language is still too divisive. Obviously I’ve thought about it a lot – have you? Do you care?

The last link is fun! I don’t know if any of you follow Made By Joel, but you MUST check out his website. He’s an artist and has lots of free printable toys and games – great for restaurants and road trips, as well as just chillin’ at home. He has a series called Paper City, and this week he did a Paper City Nativity (it’s a Matthew nativity scene, not a Luke one – no shepherds) and I love it. It’s on our shelf already.

Have a lovely weekend!

Complimentary Evening at Canad Winter Wonderland

So I open Facebook this morning and it informs me that TARGET Canada is hosting a special evening at the EX’s Winter Wonderland! Here is the link! So if your really want to go, and free is within your price range tomorrow night is your night.

Year End Wrap Up

That more or less sums it up. We had a wonderful morning filled with casual conversation and FOOD! Delicious, scrumptious  food.

And some of you are wondering how the heck those stars were made? Here is the link. It is SUPER EASY! I swear it!

From your lovely MOM’s Committee

HAVE A MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A SAFE AND HAPPY NEW YEAR.

See you in the New Year (Jan 17th to be exact)

~Danielle~

This Week at Bethel MOM’s:

This week we will be having our season wind-up. Sniff sniff, where has the time gone? I don’t know about you but I’m excited for tasty snacks. Also if you haven’t already signed the Caregiver cards, and please do we wouldn’t be able to run this program without them, they will be floating around at the start.

Also in the spirit of Advent, this was sent in.

ClothesAndToysPartyPOSTER

As many of you may know, I direct an English  language playgroup for newly immigrated women and their children called KidBridge.

This Saturday, December 8th KidBridge is hosting a “Toy and Clothing Party” for immigrant families in the area.  We are promoting this event widely to immigrant organizations in Winnipeg, and I want to make sure there  are enough clothing and toy items, so…

If you have clothing and/or gently used toys you would  like to donate to this event, please drop it off on Saturday, December 8th between 10am-12pm at Calvary Temple (400 Hargrave– back entrance by  parking lot… look for the KidBridge sign on the door).  The event  begins at 1pm, so we would like to have everything set out by then.

I am attaching our event poster with the information in case any of you  know recently immigrated families who could benefit from this giveaway  event.

We’ll be accepting women’s and men’s clothing,  children’s clothing and accessories, and small household items in good  condition.  Feel free to post this donation opportunity on facebook so  your friends can get in on this opportunity to bless our “new  neighbours” this Saturday! 🙂

Thanks  and blessings,

Lorelle

www.KidBridge.ca

cell: 204-918-9297

PS- If anyone wishes to volunteer at this event  for set-up from 10am-noon or during the event from 1-4… give me a  call! 🙂

Lastly just some shameful self promoting, I’m putting in an order for  Steeped Tea. If there is anyone interested in ordering some tea I will bring in a couple catalogues for your browsing pleasure. Closing date on the order is Dec 7th, with tea in time for Christmas.

~Danielle~

Things to do This Holiday Season

I am going to apologize in advance one for flooding your inbox with blog posts and two because of my computer and it’s incompetent operator. I had typed it up and then lost it hence an email that was blank. Palm to face.

So I thought that I would write out a separate post for these activities so they didn’t get lost in the advent awesomeness.

Do you want to visit Santa Clause?

Kildonan Place Mall has visits with Santa and you can take pictures and videos for FREE! It get’s better they email you the photos, and you can take those photos to the Shoppers in the Mall and get a FREE 4×6 photo from the photo lab. There is also colouring pictures that you can save and print. Here is the Link.

Don’t want to travel to the boonies? Here are a few options closer to home.

The Friends of Gardens Manitoba along with MB Hydro hosts the Festival of Tree and Lights in the Hydro Building downtown. Saturday Dec 8th is their Family Fun Day with visits with Santa and FREE horse drawn carriage rides. Remember to bring your camera because you can take pictures in front of your favourite vignette. Admission is FREE, donations are gratefully accepted. Here is the Link.

The Forks also has visits with Santa. Here is a Link to the Calendar. He only visits on the weekends but again it’s FREE! Or you can pay $10 to have a pro take photos and email them to you. Also some things of note they have Christmas crafts for kids on the 8th, 9th, 15th, 16th, which corresponds with Santa and I think this is genuinely awesome. There will be a Signing Santa on the 15th. Also bring your skates because the Plaza Skating Rink is OPEN!

The Manitoba Electrical Museum & Education Centre’s All That Glows Exhibit is now open and it is FREE!
Here is the Link.

And Canad Inns Winter Wonder Land at the Ex is OPEN. It is not free. You can purchase your tickets at the gate for $15 per car (under 7 occupants) or you can purchase ticket in advance at Mac’s, Co-op gas bar, or Canad Inns for $10 per car (under 7 occupants). Here is the Link. There is also special activities and “treats” depending on when you go.

Again very sorry
~Danielle~

Updated: Wrap up: Making Advent Meaningful

So after a rather sticky situation Thursday (moral of the story MAKE SURE THE LID IS ON) I had this awesome blog post typed up and was just about to press publish and somehow did something funny on my new computer and lost everything except the picture 😦 So I have to admit I haven’t been too enthused to retype it but here we go.

Thursday we had a round the circle discussion on how we remembered Advent as a child and how we as big people are making advent meaningful for our little people.

For most of us growing up Advent was celebrated in church, if celebrated at all,  all of us had a fascination with fire, and some of us had to share our chocolate. But there were a few in the group that celebrated everyday of Advent and it wasn’t just about chocolate. They were fun activities that fostered a sense of Jesus and kindness.

With the internet today there is a plethora of ideas and pinterest is full of some pretty presentations, although I swear that all the pictures are show rooms, whose house looks that awesome, really! Rant aside here is a list of ideas composed by MOM’s.

• Listen/sing Christmas Carols
• Make Christmas Cards
• Phone/Skype Family and tell them you love them
• Look through flyers and “grocery shop” for food items, go shopping for items and donate them to a food bank
• Donate old toys to charity
• Have a picnic
• Watch Christmas Movies
• Read a special Christmas story
• Drive around and look at the Christmas lights  (My favourite Christmas Eve tradition)
• Bake a birthday cake for Jesus and eat it for breakfast ( This is the greatest idea ever!)
• Write letter’s to Santa
• Count objects like windows, doors, TV’s in your house and add a “value” ex. 5 cent per tv. and at the end donate the sum to charity
• Bake and decorate cookies
• Go on the Christmas train ride in Charlsewood 3001 Roblin Blvd. Christmas at the Taylors $2 per person
• Pajama party
• Visit Santa Clause.
• Gina’s List! Also just peruse the blog for other activities, and PICTURES.
• Go select your Christmas Tree
• Decorate Christmas Tree
• Decorate the house
• Singing for Seniors (I try to do this with my Sparks, and the elderly LOVE it)
• Compose a song
• Assemble the nativity scene ( The felt nativity Vivian talked about heartfelttruths.wordpress.com/category/advent-calendar )
• Megan’s List Advent Ideas for Calendar
• Chandra’s List Advent ideas(1)
• Allison Waken from the Blog All for the Boys has some great Advent Ideas and some pretty presentations as well.

There was also talk of A Book a Day for Advent. Here is a link to a the Blog MADE with some story ideas. If you have the perusing time also look through the comments because there are more book suggestions.

Maggie had also talked about a website Inner Christmas that will email you during the 12 days of Christmas and ask you to take a few moments of reflection.

Check back as I will add to the list as more ideas come in. If you have a list and I know some of you do, you can email them to bethelmoms@gmail.com if you just have ideas you can comment below.

~Danielle~