I’m excited that Christmas is just around the corner!

Christmas is a wonderful time to spread the love and cheer, and it’s also a great opportunity to create memories with loved ones. Today, I’m blogging about what our family has done in the past so you can get some ideas.

Every Christmas Eve, our Claudio clan comes together to celebrate. We exchange gifts and eat lots of food, like most families. Two Christmases ago, we decided to add something extra and share what we were most grateful for in the past year. In a clan of 30+ people, it helped us to get to know a little something more about each other and in the process, thank God for all the blessings He has showered on our family.

Last Christmas, we had extra time to spare, so I got an idea to do something fun. I recruited my art teacher friend Linny to help me make some plain top hats out of black cartolina (known in other countries as cardstock or construction paper), then I emailed our relatives to tell them to bring art materials and other props that could be glued. All we needed to prepare were some glue guns and we were ready!

When they arrived, each person picked a top hat (the men got the taller ones), and we challenged them to come up with a creative hat using any of the materials that were available. I was blown away by how creative everyone was!

Here are some photos from that night:

We made mini top hats for the kids

Even the adults were into it!

My nephew made his own hat

Talk about effective use of props!

More of the finished products:

This was the winning hat:

The kooky Claudio clan:

You’re welcome to try this out with your family this Christmas!

Meanwhile, we’re still figuring out what to do this year. Got any ideas to share? :)