Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Chris, Vivian and Sylvia Share Family Holiday Traditions




Sylvia's parents Chris and Vivian visited with us to share their holiday traditions. Chris' family is from Germany and he shared many German Christmas traditions. Chris bought beautiful candelabras that were bought back from Germany that are very special to their family. The children loved looking at the beautiful candle holders and enjoyed watching the candles glow. Chris told us the German name for many of the things that he brought to share with us and then sang the traditional song Oh Christmas Tree in German. We listened to the song on his I Phone in both German and English and sang along all together which was lots of fun!

We also learned that Vivian's family is from Indonesia. When she was a little girl she sang a special song before holidays. Sylvia, Vivian and Chris together sang this special song for us and told us the meaning of the words in the song. It was really interesting to listen to two new languages and we loved learning more about our friend Sylvia and her family.

In Northern Germany children celebrate the holiday of St. Nick which comes around December 5th. The children put their shoes outside their houses before going to bed and sometimes St Nick leaves special treats in their shoes.....

We took off our shoes and left them outside our classroom to see if it were possible that maybe St. Nick would visit us and leave something in our shoes....

Chris and Vivian read the beautiful story of Polar Express and the the children were fully engaged in listing to this classic . While we were listening to the Polar Express....something very strange happened... a few children thought they saw a flash of something in the sky that looked like a "skateboard" or a "sled" with " someone wearing something red.."........

We went into the hallway and low and behold.. every pair of shoes was filled with little bags that were filled with chocolate coins, a cookie and a tangerine!

What an exciting morning......

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