Christmas is my most favourite time of the year. Some of the fondest memories of my childhood have been the Christmases I spent in London, walking the high street drowning myself in the festive fervour. Everyone around, young or old, white, black, brown, yellow or rainbow (haha) would have a big broad smile on their faces and hearts. Christmas was also the time we spent time decorating the tree, making DIY presents for each other, while my mom would cook up her special chicken curry – a far cry from the traditional roast but it was our special celebration nonetheless and we delighted in it and looked forward to Christmas very eagerly.
Once I got married and moved to our own nuclear setup, we made our own Christmas traditions – cooking up a sumptuous Spaghetti (If you’d like the recipe, pls visit my food blog from another life here) and watching our favourite Christmas time rom-com: Love, Actually.
And then came babyT and I knew I wanted to make Christmas time special for him too. He is of course too young to be enjoying cooking and feasting and watching movies. Although we have got fantastic home audio systems which means movies are so much better when we watch them at home! I can’t wait to watch Christmas movies with him. Yet I wanted to introduce Christmas to him in a way he knows best – via books, play and art and craft.
Like a Godsend, Kajal Dharod sent me her latest book “All About Christmas” to read, indulge in and share with my readers. It couldn’t have come at a better time because it is a complete book to understanding the story behind Christmas and who Saint Nick was and why Christmas trees are so important to the celebration. What’s really special about this book is that it has activities designed around these concepts so that kids do really learn from it and have fun at the same time.
One of our favourite activities was decorating the Christmas tree with stickers. Yes, the Christmas tree and the stickers are all provided in this book. Look at what a great time we had…
Enthused by this activity, babyT has been telling all his friends, aunts and grandparents about the Christmas tree he made. I was a proud mommy to see that he too is beginning to enjoy the Christmas tradition of decorating the tree. Today when we were out shopping in the market he got very excited to see a real (faux) Christmas tree for sale and asked me if we could have one too. He even said he wanted to decorate it with yellow and blue balls like he did in the book All About Christmas.
The nativity scene is central to Christmas celebrations and for reasons unknown I have never invested in a nativity scene set. So I was really excited to see the DIY nativity set in the book All About Christmas. It is a set of triangular cones which are to be cut from the pages of the book and then two triangles are stuck together to make a cone. Although babyT is too young to do the cutting and sticking, and I had to make this for him, he had a gala time playing with his new cone-shaped toys. We even made a quick nativity scene like this one.
The book is chock a block full of stickers, paintings to colour in and crafts and more stickers. 😉 It’s a great way to help us, busy mommies, whip out a fun-filled activity for kids especially considering that schools break for the festive season soon. There’s even a page dedicated to a letter to Santa and a “Naughty or Nice” monitor chart. Here’s a better look at some of my favourite pages.
The quality of pages and the stickers are excellent. With over 30 activities such as decorate a Christmas tree, fill the stockings, 400 stickers, papercraft cutouts on good quality card stock, and everything Christmas. One of the most innovative features in the All About Christmas book is an exclusive interview with Santa Claus. I am sure that kids who know how to read will find this super amusing and learn a lot from it too. I am saving this story for Christmas eve and will end it with leaving a surprise under our Christmas tree for babyT to find in the morning. 🙂
This book would make a great gift for your little ones and other children in your lives. It is priced at Rs. 349 or $7.49 – really great value for money. You can buy All About Christmas here.
All About Christmas is written by Kajal Dharod and illustrated by Aaba Kamble. It is a book from the team at Your Learning Capsules who believe in adopting a 3 step methodology to make learning fun and interesting. Their approach is i) Learn: A proprietary song and video (a 2-minute capsule,) ii) Engage: Circle time with a Storyboard Activity Template to play along with the song, iii) Re-emphasize: Reinforce learning through unique arts and crafts, innovative games, storytelling, outdoor and sensory activities and more.
Books are a great way to introduce new concepts to kids. Recently we were gifted a book on Hannukah and my son learnt so much more than what I could have taught him through the book. I love this ideas and will definitely be adding more to our collection on festivals. Will definitely check this one out too, I like that she made it interactive with stickers and all!