Bookish Christmas Countdown: Santa's Toy Shop

I can't believe how fast the past few days have flown by. I must admit I am starting to panic a little now. Thankfully we don't have to travel over Christmas this year, so that makes it a little easier.

Our book for today is a vintage Little Golden Book from my husband's childhood book collection. It is Walt Disney's Santa's Toy Shop. It's a battered old thing with stains and that old book smell (James was quick to tell me that 'this book smells funny') Regardless of this, we all still enjoy reading it and it's nice to be able to share in the history of the book as well.

 
In this story we get to take a tour of Santa's toy shop, seeing all the different departments from doll department to the train department. Santa Claus is very busy, with training elves, answering letters, and of course, monitoring the naughty and nice list. He is so busy that he doesn't have time to play with any of the toys. Then Mrs Claus comes up with a bright idea that means Santa just might be able to play with the toys after all.

 
Our Christmas activity for today was inspired by some crafting that I did yesterday. I have seen so many versions of the beautiful book paper Christmas trees on Pinterest that I just had to make some for myself.  I made two different versions to decorate our table on Christmas day.

 
James loved them so much that he wanted to make one of his own. We used some brochures (and they are plentiful at the moment) and small tin can as the base. Inside the base I stuck some old play dough and put a wooden cooking skewer in the center for the trunk of the tree.

 

James was excited to be using my Pinking Shears and did a lovely job of cutting the big squares for the base of the tree. Then his little hands got tired because the shears are so heavy so I cut the rest of the smaller squares for him.

 

This was such a wonderful activity, as we got to use some pretty cool scissors and we also discussed the concepts of big and small, while deciding which piece of paper to put on next.

 

Warning: This activity requires supervision, as it involves a sharp skewer to place the paper on. I held the skewer for James while he pierced the paper and slid it on.

 

Thank you for sharing Our Very Bookish Christmas Countdown with us.