True Meaning Of Christmas For Toddlers


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Today I was thinking about christmas and how I can teach my 2 and a half year old the true meaning of christmas, as this is the first christmas I feel he can really understand it. If anyone has any ideas or experiences they would like to share, I would love to hear them. We have a book that was given to us which I read him about santa claus, but I realised today I don't have one yet about the birth of christ. Truly Shameful. I intend to do that very soon. I did stick a picture of christ in a frame on his wall in his bedroom and ask him from time to time who it is. I have a nativity scene which I will stick up when I pull out the christmas decorations too, that will be another good teaching tool. Feel free to give ideas. :)

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Children love birthdays and birthday parties. Perhaps for a 2 year old putting it in that perspective might be helpful but of course a bit toned down. A friend of mine put together a three ring binder with all the pictures and stories she could find about Christ's birth. That way her children could go through it and they could discuss what each of the pictures represented and read and talk about the stories.

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its easier for me as I grew up knowing Santa wasn't real (we still had him but new he was more of a fun character_, I am doing the same with my children.

We have our Christmas holiday on Chirstmas Eve - we have out main meal and open our presents at midnight. Then I change the Santa or the Angel on top of the tree for a Star and we sing Away in a Manger and tell the nativity story.

Next morning if the weather is good we go out for a picnic with the leftovers and a Happy Birthday Jesus cake. We also take either 3 balloons or 3 origami boats - attched to them are our 3 gifts to Jesus (promises we make for over the year) and we let them go.

-Charley

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Today I was thinking about christmas and how I can teach my 2 and a half year old the true meaning of christmas, as this is the first christmas I feel he can really understand it. If anyone has any ideas or experiences they would like to share, I would love to hear them. We have a book that was given to us which I read him about santa claus, but I realised today I don't have one yet about the birth of christ. Truly Shameful. I intend to do that very soon. I did stick a picture of christ in a frame on his wall in his bedroom and ask him from time to time who it is. I have a nativity scene which I will stick up when I pull out the christmas decorations too, that will be another good teaching tool. Feel free to give ideas. :)

I would sing him Christmas songs like Away in a Manger, read him stories about the baby Jesus because at 2 he has a toddler understanding about what a baby is. Just make it easy, fun and happy.

M.

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we always had a family play....we acted out the Christmas story from Luke....everyone had a part. My wife and oldest daughter this one year. It was just the 3 of us and they put this play on for me. Since then we have always done this. Now all my kids are older and we still do this....and our grandaughter now has a part in the play......LOL!!!!!

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These are all very good ideas for teaching the young ones. We always love making the Christmas Chain. (take one chain off every night to count the days until Christmas) On each chain, you write a line of the Christmas Story. (red & green construction paper, cut strips, circle, and fasten inside the next ring, staple/tape each circle) At bedtime, remove the last chain circle and read the line. By Christmas you have read the story, bit by bit, and talked about it each night.

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<div class='quotemain'>

<div class='quotemain'>

its easier for me as I grew up knowing Santa wasn't real

WHAT!!! Ummm,

Say it ain't so. :(:(:(

Reminds me of the movie The Miracle on 42nd Street.

don't worry ma i got your back. nice to know i'm not the only one on the site that's not a santa pusher. lol

as for the kids. we read, tell, act out, whatever feels good at the moment the christmas story with our kids all the time. most of them can tell it better than a lot of adults. as for seperating that from santa, school and extended family talk about him, but not a big subject in our house.

ok so i know i've mentioned this before somewhere so i'll give the short version; my son (this was awhile ago so 5 at the time) explained to his teacher that santa was very very old and eventually you get so old you just die so santa was gonna die soon. for those that are concerned no i didn't tell him that, came up with it all on his own, though i thought it was too funny.

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<div class='quotemain'>

<div class='quotemain'>

<div class='quotemain'>

its easier for me as I grew up knowing Santa wasn't real

WHAT!!! Ummm,

Say it ain't so. :(:(:(

Reminds me of the movie The Miracle on 42nd Street.

don't worry ma i got your back. nice to know i'm not the only one on the site that's not a santa pusher. lol

as for the kids. we read, tell, act out, whatever feels good at the moment the christmas story with our kids all the time. most of them can tell it better than a lot of adults. as for seperating that from santa, school and extended family talk about him, but not a big subject in our house.

ok so i know i've mentioned this before somewhere so i'll give the short version; my son (this was awhile ago so 5 at the time) explained to his teacher that santa was very very old and eventually you get so old you just die so santa was gonna die soon. for those that are concerned no i didn't tell him that, came up with it all on his own, though i thought it was too funny.

LOL I like that, remember my brother getting into trouble for colouring Santa in in bright colours at school, Mum told the teacher she was ridiculous and she gave us both an extended Christmas Holiday - ironically Father Christmas should be painted in green and he has started appearing in our shops in gold and green - Ellie knows Santa is not real but asked could she believe in him anyway which is fine thats what we did as kids. We still left out a glass of whiskey, mince pie and carrot but we also knew Great Uncle Ken was gonna have it - which is why it needed to be a certain malt. Mum just heard a play on the radio when she was pregnant with me about someone who had become very hardbitten because his parents had lied to him about Santa and swore she wouldn't do it with us. Have to say knowing Mum treated us like grown ups and we knew that Santa wasn't real was great as a child - it also helped us trust her later when we really needed too because things went very badly. Also because she was honest the christmas we were homeless didn't hurt anywhere near as much - I had grown up appreciating the people that gave us the Christmas present, so when we were homeless and all I got was a small box Mum had made with £1 to buy my favourite magazine later in the week I really appreciated it and there was nothing hurtful, Christmas was very much about Christ and family in our home and that is special and magical all by itself imo. I also had a wonderful moment I should feel repentant about after years of being bullied by a girl at school - I decided before she went to senior school she should know Santa wasn't real so I told her (she was nearly 12) and made sure she went home knowing it.

We do have a present under the tree from Jesus - we include a Christmas Story, religious jewellery etc. Just we keep Christmas so simple and its lovely I appreciate not having Santa as a big deal or feeling pushed to do too much.

-Charley

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It all actually sounds quite lovely Gabelma. And I just realized I changed the name of the classic movie. Boy do I feel stupid. It's Miracle on 34th Street. I just wanted to change addresses. :P

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It all actually sounds quite lovely Gabelma. And I just realized I changed the name of the classic movie. Boy do I feel stupid. It's Miracle on 34th Street. I just wanted to change addresses. :P

:) I love the film. I was actually nervous when I put it in my first post, I know it can be quite contentious when my husbands family are present for Christmas we had to come up with a story that worked for both families, basically I put the tree up on the 23rd night with presents early and told my neice that Santa delivered the tree early because it was a magic tree (its ivory with lanterns), that allowed us to do Christmas our way but her have Santa, but seeing that Christmas reminded me why we didn't do him as anything more than a fictional character it was so stressful - I am not anti Santa as such he's just never been essential for me in having a lovely Christmas and now things seem to be getting so out of hand I am appreciating that Christmas doesn't get very commercial for us. My daughter knows the Saint Nicholas story, which we tell her every year.

I guess some people see it as sad but for me Santa has become an unnecessary cause of stress.

-Charley

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I would love to get back to the simplicity of Christmas. But when stores start advertising Christmas in October it's hard to get my own kids to think about anything but what they want. Though this year might be different. Money is extremely tight so a good chance for me to bring the real meaning of Christmas back into play. Doing some family things instead of focusing on the material side of it.

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I would love to get back to the simplicity of Christmas. But when stores start advertising Christmas in October it's hard to get my own kids to think about anything but what they want. Though this year might be different. Money is extremely tight so a good chance for me to bring the real meaning of Christmas back into play. Doing some family things instead of focusing on the material side of it.

I know what you mean my christmas ideas have mostly come out of not having much money but that has been a huge blessing when it comes to keeping Christ in Christmas something we are going to do this year is to have an advent calender which has nativity characters and you build the nativity over the month of advent - I am hoping to find the energy to sit down with Ellie everyday and write a story about the piece we pick out of the box, again the idea came out of necessity Ellie gets migraines and I wanted an alternative to a chocolate one.

Because of my best friend we also incorporate some Anglican/Roman Catholic Traditions - we use an advent crown but change the candles but I can't remember what our LDS version of the candles are its written in the box, we also attend a Christingle service http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christingle, and carol services. Allows us to remember and talk about Jesus a lot.

For me though I allow the season to be about indulgence to a point but Christmas day is family and to focus of Jesus.

-Charley

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Today I was thinking about christmas and how I can teach my 2 and a half year old the true meaning of christmas, as this is the first christmas I feel he can really understand it. If anyone has any ideas or experiences they would like to share, I would love to hear them. We have a book that was given to us which I read him about santa claus, but I realised today I don't have one yet about the birth of christ. Truly Shameful. I intend to do that very soon. I did stick a picture of christ in a frame on his wall in his bedroom and ask him from time to time who it is. I have a nativity scene which I will stick up when I pull out the christmas decorations too, that will be another good teaching tool. Feel free to give ideas. :)

Hi looking4afriend,

As a 2-3 year old he probably understands the concept of birthdays now.

Perhaps emphasising Jesus' birthday would be a good way to go at this stage.

Some suggestions:

Singing happy birthday to Jesus.

Having a Jesus birthday cake.

Lots of pictures of baby Jesus around the place.

A book about Jesus birth.

Having your nativity setting out and talking about baby Jesus' birthday.

I used a user friendly nativity setting that my kids could pick up and play with.

They could play with the figures, even drool on them if they wanted to.

Repetition is an important learning tool for the 2-3 year olds.

So doing something from the list above every day will help.

For example, reading the story before nap time or bed time every day.

Visual tools are also important because at that age they can't read yet.

Hence the emphasis on pictures.

Songs and simple rhymes are helpful too.

They may not sing along but they most certainly are listening.

So perhaps choose a simple Jesus song from the children's song book.

Sing it each day...repetition being the key.

Anyway, hope these suggestions help....I found them helpful with my kids.

I was also Nursery Leader in Primary for a while, so they were helpful then too.

Onyx

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

Children love birthdays and birthday parties. Perhaps for a 2 year old putting it in that perspective might be helpful but of course a bit toned down. A friend of mine put together a three ring binder with all the pictures and stories she could find about Christ's birth. That way her children could go through it and they could discuss what each of the pictures represented and read and talk about the stories.

so when did u know santa was a fable?

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<div class='quotemain'>

Children love birthdays and birthday parties. Perhaps for a 2 year old putting it in that perspective might be helpful but of course a bit toned down. A friend of mine put together a three ring binder with all the pictures and stories she could find about Christ's birth. That way her children could go through it and they could discuss what each of the pictures represented and read and talk about the stories.

so when did u know santa was a fable?

you mean Santa is not real???...... :wow::wow:

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I'm kinda new to the Church of LDS, so please forgive me if what I say is not good.

My son and I would - after he gets down the stairs and shouts "SANTAS BEEN!" - will say a little prayer of thanks before he rips off the wrappers. It makes him appreciate what he has far much more and I do want to give my thanks that he can have those things.

Now we are part of the LDS church, I don't plan on changing the routine (although we will change the prayer from generic to specific).

You know, nativities help! Get him involved in a nativity, even if it's among the family. It's amazing what feeling a part of the story does for their faith!

Aside from that - sorry I've nothing. Hope I haven't butted in.

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I'm kinda new to the Church of LDS, so please forgive me if what I say is not good.

My son and I would - after he gets down the stairs and shouts "SANTAS BEEN!" - will say a little prayer of thanks before he rips off the wrappers. It makes him appreciate what he has far much more and I do want to give my thanks that he can have those things.

Now we are part of the LDS church, I don't plan on changing the routine (although we will change the prayer from generic to specific).

You know, nativities help! Get him involved in a nativity, even if it's among the family. It's amazing what feeling a part of the story does for their faith!

Aside from that - sorry I've nothing. Hope I haven't butted in.

That is a very cool idea. If my son stayed with us on Christmas morning, I would have us all do that.

Nope, you're not butting in. Just jump in and say what you wish (within the rules of course)

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