MOMday: Toddler Postcards to Santa (Craft)

Obviously, my three year old twins are much too little to actually write to Santa.  They don't even really understand the concept of asking for a specific something because we don't let them watch commercial-filled TV.  This make s it really hard to provide ideas to grandparents and friends when they ask what the girls might like for holiday gifts.

So, I decided to remedy this with a special craft for the girlies this weekend.

Supplies needed:

• Poster board (we cut one in half and gave each girl a half)
• Kid-safe scissors
• glue stick
• Every holiday flyer you can get your hands on
• Crayons, markers etc
• any other embellishments you desire

Then we sat at the table, handed them flyers and scissors and told them to cut out every picture that they liked or would like to play with.

It took them a moment to figure it out (honestly, they really preferred to cut the edges of the flyers into confetti) and eventually, the struggles with the scissors made us take over cutting duties and we enlisted them to point out the things instead and we cut them out.

Then - we handed them the glue sticks and they went to town, making collages of the things they liked and what had drawn their eyes. 

Some of it was about colour.  Some were about the toys.  Some were just holiday pictures they thought Santa would like.  

Then they "decorated" it with some foam sticker things that shed glitter everywhere.   I had saved the scraps so they could cut out something, but they decided they liked the odd, glittery shapes.

The collages are interesting little snapshots into the things the girls like.  And they definitely gave us a bit more direction for our own shopping.  We finished off by having them write their names in the white space.

I'm not sure if they liked the craft because it was a letter to Santa or if it was merely because it was a craft.  Either way - once we got to the gluing part - they loved every moment.  If I'd been brave enough to introduce glitter glue - this might be the only thing they would talk about for the next year.

It was a fun craft to help them get into the spirit, though.   I think if we do it again next year - they will really love it.

Good thing we addressed them so we could send them off to St. Nick ;)  That way the glitter won't continue to shed all over my house!