The holidays are a perfect time to cultivate your children’s creativity, drawing upon theflurry of images, stories and sounds of the holiday season! Invite your children to create art that expresses their feelings and ideas. Ideally,you can provide your children with an oversized sketch pad along with lots of art materials. Perhaps your child’s art can become a holiday greeting to someone special, or you can use artful works as gifts for relatives or to proudly display in your home. Art is a stress-buster and is just plain fun!

Set up a creativity station for your children, so that they can work safely, freely and
comfortably. You will want to consider providing such materials as pencils, markers, paints, brushes, stamps and ink pads, stickers, glue stick, scissors, cotton balls, buttons, construction paper and any other age-appropriate embellishments and added art supplies that will ensure a fun and creative experience.

Help inspire your child by seeding ideas that can help them tap their imaginations. What does “Peace on Earth” look like? What does your perfect Christmas tree look like? Draw one of the principles of Kwanzaa, such as purpose or unity – what image comes to mind? As part of your traditional Hanukkah celebration, draw a picture of what your most delicious sufganiyot (jelly dou

ghnut) looks like – maybe its one giant sufganiyot or perhaps it’s a stack of them. Your child might really enjoy making a piece of collage-style art that incorporates twisted tinsel wire for sparkling stars or real holly from a bush to create a special holiday scene. Remember that the joy of art is in creating it, so avoid
making corrections or negative judgments. It’s okay for your child to experiment with color or design and then decide they may not like what they created. As they say, “If at first you don’t succeed (in what you envision) try, try again.”  Creativity is a valuable skill that every child needs to nurture! It is a gift that continues giving back through an entire lifetime.

Consider signing your child up for an Abrakadoodle creative holiday art class or camp.