Day 5.2018

Peanut Jesus.

Yes, you read that right.  For the last month or so I have been planning activities for the littles in Kathleen’s Sunday school class.  I mean, I plan the activities all the time, but in the last few months I have been looking at Christmas crafts for them, since my own kids have aged out of Christmas crafts. (although I am forcing them to come in and help on Sundays in December).  Since Kathleen and I have them for Sunday School and then for extended session is like an extra long Sunday School hour.  Normally there is free play until they can’t stand it anymore, followed by the lesson, a craft of some sort maybe, the snack, and then more free plan followed by singing and stomping and putting up of toys.

But because this is the season of extra and more more more, we are doing not one craft activity but TWO every week.  Let me tell you the joy and excitement this brings those children. “But Mister Judson we don’t want to do another craft, wasn’t that one already more than enough?”  I believe that is child speak for “I wish we could do crafts all day Mister Judson”.  In the same way that I ask if I should sing to them and they tell me please no, meaning of course they love to hear me sing.

So in Sunday, after the banner, we had Peanut Jesus craft.  Really and truly it is a ridiculous craft, you take a peanut in a shell, glue on 2 googly eyes, wrap it in something that looks like swaddling cloth and then glue it to the crook of a candy cane with straw to emulate a manger.  It is ridiculous in design, I mean it is a peanut with googly eyes standing in as the baby Jesus.  Plus there are a ton of tiny steps that challenge little fingers so it’s more of a look at the craft the teacher made and put your name on kind of activity.

As is often the case with these crafty things, not everything goes as planned. First off, we have peanut allergies in class, and not your regular kind, but the kind where if someone has contact with a peanut at school and then comes home the sibling has a reaction kind of peanut allergies. So, Peanut Jesus became popsicle stick Jesus. The new name is not as exciting, but everyone was safer.  But then when we were breaking the popsicle sticks to approximate the size of a peanut they didn’t break of smoothly which lead to someone getting a splinter. So of course whining and needing a Band-Aid and much drama.  All the children were very relieved when my Paul turned out to be ok. 

Then of course lots of gluing, and the googly eyes didn’t fit on the popsicle sticks.  Even the teeny tiny googly eyes looked like a cross between Sid from Ice age and Marty Feldman. Plus they didn’t stay in place and kept falling off, so we moved on past that point. Alas. (Because really the googly eyes and the peanut really sell this).  Coffee filter swaddling clothes really didn’t help sell it.  But we did have yellow confetti grass for straw, and you can’t screw up the candy cane.

So, drum roll please… here is the finished craft.  We sent them home dripping in glue with instructions to let them dry.  I wonder if they made it home safely?  This week, hard craft first, banner last. Except this week may or may not be the tricky banner. I never go for the easy craft do I?

But hey, what did we learn? Peanut Jesus teaches us that Jesus was born for us.