Here Comes Santa Clause?? Nope! Here comes Jesus!

I found this idea at Latter-Day Homeschooling website after seeing it pinned on Pinterest.

It was such a good idea and really got the one good point across I wanted my kids to learn and think about this Christmas.

Fold a piece of paper in half and make yourself a little door.

I trimmed the top of the door and colored it all fancy, my daughter is into Narnia so I wanted to make an old looking castle type door.

Then print out the picture of Jesus they have linked here.

Then with the door closed start this line of hints I took from this post.

"Pretty soon we might have a special guest visit our house. You never know! I'm going to give some clues that describe this person and you guess who it is." The clues included:

• he sees you when you're sleeping. He knows when you're awake. He knows if you've been bad or good.
• he has a beard and a kind face
• he spent his life giving to others
• he's often pictured in red and/or white clothes
• he loves little children
• he gives the very best gifts
• you can never see him, but you can feel him
• he gives us a wonderful, special warm feeling
• he can get into our homes even if the doors are locked
• he has special, wonderful powers
• we want to give gifts back to him, but he doesn't need anything we could buy; he just wants us to give to other people. (My kids have been talking about giving a present to Santa.)
• I ended with, "He encourages us to be good so we will be ready when he comes."

Then the origonal poster said the  kids all gasped in amazement that she was actually describing Jesus - there are so many similarities! They discussed how each description applied to both Jesus and Santa, and then they talked about how Santa is actually a symbol for Jesus, and everything we love about Santa is really everything we love about Jesus. They can be reminded of Jesus through many different symbols during the Christmas season, and we mentioned a few - candy canes, giving gifts, stars on the tree, etc.

They also looked at a few more pictures of Jesus and even a picture of Santa kneeling at the manger to discuss how Jesus is the greatest gift. It was a very enjoyable and memorable lesson for them. Now their youngest keeps wanting to open the door and let Jesus in - and we let him!

I can't wait until my daughter is home so we can do our Christmas lesson tonight.
I printed out the list of clues and put it on the backside of my door. I will save it and we will see if they remember who is behind the door next year too.