www.fridayschildmontessori.com
The team here at Friday’s Child Montessori want to wish you and your family a wonderful Christmas and summer holiday period.
It’ll be a while until we see our young friends back here at our early childhood centre, as we’re all going to be having a bit of a break. Enjoy this time with your family – we certainly will be.
For our last article for 2012, we thought we’d leave you with a few stories related to a few of our Christmas traditions and give some tips for other places you can find some good reading material to share with your family, young and old, during this season.
Father Christmas/Santa Claus (current tradition): Up in the North Pole where the Northern Lights flicker, a mysterious and magical figure lives, where he makes wonderful toys with the help of his elfin helpers.
In the lead up to Christmas, he makes up a list of children, noting whether they have been naughty or nice.
The good children get presents in stockings left hanging by the chimney or at the end of the bed (it doesn’t matter which).
The naughty ones get their stockings full of coal. He harnesses up a sleigh pulled by eight (or maybe nine) flying reindeer, headed up by the red-nosed Rudolph.
The other reindeer are named Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner and Blitzen.
These reindeer fly through the air as Santa travels the world at midnight, entering homes through the chimney and leaving presents.
Custom dictates that you leave him a thank-you gift and possibly a letter. What to leave him as a snack varies from home to home: in the USA, milk and cookies are usually left, but mince pies and glasses of sherry are the preferred offering in the UK.
You also leave a carrot for the reindeer. In the morning, there will be other traces of the whitebearded gentleman’s visit: crumbs from the cookies or the pie, the empty glass and the end of the carrot.
You may also find bits of soot and ash on the hearth from his entry and exit. Sometimes, Father Christmas also leaves a letter.
And what does he do when there is no chimney on the house?
This question was burning in the minds of children on the other side of the Tasman in Christchurch where many homes had lost their big old chimneys thanks to an earthquake.
The newspaper was quick to respond: he comes in through the window or the ranch slider, which you leave open for him and he will close behind him.
He probably has similar arrangements in the Gold Coast.
Reading material related to this branch of the tradition are the classic poem “Twas the night before Christmas” (also known as “A visit from Saint Nicholas”) and JRR Tolkien’s “Father Christmas Letters”.
The latter is bases on a series of letters that arrived for JRRT’s children over the years and contains many classic Tolkien elements:
elves that battle goblins, magical bears, strange languages, poetry, getting lost in caves and a whitebearded wizard who’s skilled with fireworks.
More Christmas Fun stories at www.fridayschildmontessori.com