Kids & Holiday Decorating Activities Crossword

KIDS &FAMILY

Kids and Holiday Decorating Activities

By Donna Erickson

Signal Contributing Writer

Ask me for a few memories of Christmases past, and I instantly recall my dad on a ladder stapling multicolor strings of lights to the eaves of our house.

Mom festooned the interior with swags of evergreen and fresh eucalyptus (we lived in Northern California) with gilded angels and shiny ornaments. Although my brothers and I decorated cookies and set up the manger scene, it was my folks who primarily created the holiday magic around our place.

In today’s more relaxed style, why not bring the kids into the center of holiday decorating with you, and make the coming month a do-together season of creativity, entertaining and giving?

To get kids started, here’s a whimsical centerpiece that combines a variety of objects to tell a story or suggest a holiday wintry theme to adorn a dining-room table or mantel.

Look for a clear glass hurricane or a clear glass wide vase you may have tucked away in your storage closet. Then choose small holiday items and images that express the way you celebrate the season, along with nature finds. Then bring out stored ornaments, mini strings of battery-operated lights or candles.

What you need:

‰ one tall and wide (about 12 inches by 5 inches) clear glass hurricane shade, a similar size plain, clear glass vase, or a glass chimney tube (available at craft and discount stores) ‰ a tray, a large round plate or a wide, shallow bowl for the base ‰ small keepsake holiday or themed items, toys, artificial greens or nature finds, such as mini pinecones and moss

Here’s the fun:

Arrange holiday-themed items in the center of the base, then place glass shade, vase or chimney tube over it. Set in the middle of your diningroom table. Add greens or other decorative items around the outside of the base.

For example:

1. Set a miniature decorative pine tree with tiny decorations dusted with snow in the middle. Around the outside, create a village scene with mini houses and figurines from your kids’ toy bins or your ornament collection. 2. School-age kids might enjoy decorating the glass by painting designs with permanent paint pens or acrylic paint in squeeze bottles. 3. Set a pillar candle inside by itself and let the light sparkle through colorful flat-sided marbles that you glue randomly around the outside of the glass shade. (Use thick, quick-setting glue for best results.) When the candle glows at mealtime, it will remind your child that he or she was the one who placed the marbles just so! 

Donna Erickson’s award-winning series “Donna’s Day” is airing on public television nationwide. To find more of her creative family recipes and activities, visit www.donnasday.com and link to the NEW Donna’s Day Facebook fan page. Her latest book is “Donna Erickson’s Fabulous Funstuff for Families.” SUNDAYSIGNAL · 21 CROSSWORD TIME

Opinion Unless otherwise stated, the views and opinions expressed are those of the respective authors and do not necessarily represent the views of The Signal.

READER LETTERS

Tom Lee’s Influence Shouldn't Be Forgotten

I have read the latest Signal list of the most influential persons of 2022 and would like to express my appreciation of your efforts each year noting those persons who are making our Santa Clarita Valley a most desirable place to live and work.

I would like to recommend that Tom Lee, past chairman and CEO of The Newhall Land and Farming Co., be listed a No. 1 most influential person for many years. His efforts at Newhall Land from 1970 until he retired several years ago has resulted in the wonderful city of Santa Clarita it is now.

Valencia, the master planned community for those early years, has shaped our present city to be a great city. This early effort headed by Tom Lee at Newhall Land is now being thoughtfully carried out by our city government and elected officials.

The master plan created through the leadership of Newhall Land has created residential communities of high design quality connected by landscaped pedestrian ways (paseos) to parks, shopping and schools (you can walk from each house to these areas without crossing a street). Wonderful parks and quality neighbborhood shopping and a major shopping center are now a reality. Planned industrial centers, Valencia Industrial Center, and the Valencia Commerce Center, along with office areas provides local employment, relieving many of a long commute to work outside of our valley.

Jim Combs Valencia

Social Security Hike Not a Moment Too Soon

An 8.7% increase in Social Security benefits is on the horizon for 2023, and not coming a moment too soon.

Around 70 million Americans will receive this 8.7% increase, and again not coming a moment too soon.

This increase in benefits is the largest in 40 years. The average increase in benefits will be about $144.

Another benefit on the horizon is that Medicare premiums for Part B will drop 3%, “giving seniors more peace of mind and breathing room,” again not coming a moment too soon.

In the past the cost of living benefits have been eaten up by the Medicare premiums.

These new cost of living benefits have come about by the Inflation Reduction Act thanks to the Democrats.

Republicans, the likes of Kevin McCarthy and Lindsey Graham, are hell-bent into ending Social Security and Medicare, and to this I say Democrats, stop them.

We Americans have gone through inflation before and due to our perseverance and willpower we have survived them. The present inflation will run its course and adjust itself to a reasonable percentage in time.

Hang in there, America. Help is on its way in 2023 with these new benefits.

Lois Eisenberg Santa Clarita

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ETHICALLY SPEAKING

About Religious Freedom

As the leaves start to turn I always get a little bit more lighthearted with the holidays in view. This is my favorite season. By that I mean my favorite season is looking forward to the holiday season. At this point it is all anticipation and I find that the looking forward is both filled with the great memories of the past and devoid of the fatigue that so often comes in the package of a busy holiday schedule.

On the horizon just now is Thanksgiving with its promise of family, good food, a relaxing couple of days, and some good football. And of course, we will pause to reflect back on the events of the year through which we have seen the hand of God in His providence ruling over the events of history so as to display His glory. After all, that was the basis of the very first Thanksgiving even if today’s culture wants to say otherwise.

I find it very interesting that the very first celebration of Thanksgiving was focused on God Himself. He was the object of their praise and their giving of thanks. They had come searching for a new land where freedom could be established for all. And they found it in the New World. They came intending to forge a new kind of society.

Today we live in that society even though the whole idea of religious freedom is becoming frayed around the edges. When Muslim students can threaten legal action against the Roman Catholic private school they attend for displaying a crucifix in class it is apparent that something is amiss. When valedictorians in public high schools are suspended for daring to finish a prayer in Jesus’ name it shocks our sensibilities. And when, as a clergyman, I am asked to open a government meeting in prayer but asked not to invoke the name of a deity, things have just gone too far. What we are seeing in America now is not freedom of religion, but a perverted, prejudicial and harmful determination that the public realm must enjoy freedom from religion.

Anyone with an open mind must admit that the founders of our republic did not hold to the idea that religious influence in the public square should be outlawed. Read their papers, their letters, their speeches. While I do not believe that they all held to the same set of beliefs, it is apparent that they believed religious insight had some place in the public discourse. And doesn’t it make sense that a group of intelligent men who studied and labored long to thread religious freedom through the fabric of America would as well consider that the influence of religion was beneficial to the nation’s public conversation? Why fight for it only to isolate it away from that part of our nation’s life that affects us all?

In essence, when religious thought and perspective are drained away from our public discourse, what we are left with is another calculated belief system that now gets to dominate. Make no mistake, a non-religious humanism is every bit as much of a worldview as any of the world’s religions. It has been a very clever ploy on the humanists’ part. By declaring all religious conversation to have no part in our public dialogue they have quickly taken and held the field. Now the only worldview that is tolerated is one that has no god, no absolute moral standard, and sadly, no hope for the future other than personal peace and affluence. One wonders, as they slice the turkey, if it even occurs to them that someone outside of themselves deserves some thanks for all that they enjoy.

And so I look forward to Thanksgiving, and not only because of the joys of seeing my children and grandchildren. I look forward to the day because it offers a bit of normalcy as we sit around the table and remember that, no matter how hard some may try to push God out of the circle, He is actually controlling the circle, and everything else. Soli Deo Gloria.

Local resident David Hegg is senior pastor of Grace Baptist Church. “Ethically

Speaking” appears Sundays. 