Sock Snowmen

These are my FAVORITE to make!

Supplies:

• Child size white sock (should not be all stained!)
• Child size colored sock
• Polyester batting
• 2 rubber bands
• 2 thin sticks for arms
• Fuzzy craft balls for eyes
• Small accessories for decorations
• Ribbon for tying on to tree
• Hot Glue Gun and sticks (Help your kids with the hot glue gun. It REALLY hurts if you get burned!!!)
• Scissors
• Craft paint pens for mouth

Take the child size white sock and stuff it with enough polyester batting to form the bottom oblong ball. Tie the sock above the bottom ball with a rubber band. Stuff enough polyester batting to form the head. Tie the top with a rubber band. You can trim off any excess sock at the top if need be. Cut off the toe of a colored sock, roll the open side into a cuff. Hot glue the sock onto head, covering top rubber band. Cut a band of the sock off and cut the side to open it into a strip. Stretch it out a bit and then tie it around the neck as a scarf. Poke a hole in each side with the tip of the scissors. Hot glue a stick into the holes on each side to form arms. Now decorate your snowman with accessories like we did here. Poke a hole through the top of the hat and string a ribbon through to tie as a hanger for the tree. No 2 snowmen should be identical. Use your imagination! We have at east 25 of these guys on our tree and we tie them to gifts. They are so much fun to make!

There are so many needy people this year in all of our communities. Putting the holiday focus exclusively on gifts for your children is not really what giving is all about. Let them learn about how fortunate they really are by helping others. Here are some activities you can do together as a family:

1. Conduct a food drive or gather $ donations for a food bank – Our nation’s food banks have been desperately low with the increase in the number of needy people, due to the economy and huge increase in unemployment. You can ask family members, friends and neighbors to buy a few extra items at the grocery store to donate to a food bank. You can check with your child’s school to ask if you can conduct a drive there and have each student bring in a few items. Check online to find a food bank near you. There are often distribution centers that give to all the local offices.
2. Adopt one needy family – You can ask your church, synagogue or a local charity if you can hep out a needy family. We did this one year through the Children’s Home Society. We bought and wrapped gifts for the kids and the Mom. They included toys and also items that the family desperately needed. We also donated much-needed clothing that was in excellent condition. You may find a family that just wants the food to prepare a nice holiday dinner as well.
3. Offer to provide a holiday craft at a senior center – This will help your child learn to organize and create a project from scratch. My daughter and I did this many times at a senior center near our church. We brought in the craft supplies and a sample of the craft and helped the residents create something special for the holidays. One year we made sock snowmen, while another year we made small wreaths for their doors. The Activities Director was inspired by our crafts to get a tree for the lobby so the seniors could decorate it with their homemade crafts. One night we visited so my daughter could play the piano and my husband could sing Christmas Carols.
4. Do something special for a lonely or elderly neighbor – If you have a neighbor or church or synagogue member who lives alone and has few visitors, invite him or her to one of your holiday dinners. Another idea is to have your child bake cookies for that neighbor and bring them over to stay for a nice visit. You can also offer to run errands, shovel a driveway, wrap gifts, help them make travel plans and so much more.
5. Each family member can go through his or her stash to find gently used items to donate to a charity before new gifts come in. I have some friends who only allow their kids to have a certain number of toys at one time. In order to get a new toy, they must donate one they already have. This family says that sometimes the kids would rather keep what they have than get something new!

Whatever you choose to do, remember this – years down the road, long after your kids forgot what their gifts were, they will remember that special time when your family did something selfless to help out someone else less fortunate.

Given the economy, it is bit harder to get into the holidays this year – but even more important to do so. We all need to have family traditions and make memories for ourselves and our kids no matter what is going on in the world. In order to feel the spirit, we bought our tree (our first REAL one ever!) and decorated the house. I scaled back this year, because I am not in the mood for excess -  excess work putting it up, excess clutter in the house and excess work taking it down and putting it away.

After my Mom passed away and I had to get rid of all her stuff, I have been sticking to my “Less is More” philosophy. That will certainly spill over into the gifts as well. We’re just not buying that much stuff. And I am not going to buy things just to buy things either because it is Christmas time. Here is my plan:

1. When I shop, I consider whether the item is really and truly usable for the giftee. Is it going to be put in a rummage pile in a year or less? If so, forget it! Is it complicated and has a ton of parts? Forget that too? Is it huge and hard to store? NO WAY! You catch my drift. Is it made cheaply and is going to fall apart? Those are the WORST gifts and the ones most like to get tossed.
2. I discuss with friends that we really don’t need to exchange gifts for our kids. Everyone is so happy about that too.
3. I am not entertaining much this season, unlike others. I want to share the time with my family as much as possible and not do the extra work (like I did for Thanksgiving).
4. I am going to get in the spirit by doing something nice for someone needy. This should not be too hard to find and I hope to get the family involved.
5. I am going to be thankful and feel grateful for all of it – the family, the tree, the feeling you get and most of all, laying around on Christmas day reading new books.

As I write this, there are just over 4 hours until the deadline to enter the Smart Poodle “What I Wish Everyone Knew About Librarians” writing contest. So now is your last chance! You can win one of 3 cash prizes – $500, $100 or $50.

Hurry! Start writing!