Craft Day
Today was Christmas Craft Day for our home school group. This is an insanely large event that we dread each year. This year was no exception. The field trip coordinators planned it and sent out the 1st two e-mails. The RSVP’s were piling up and still coming in. Then our main planner’s family was shipped to Idaho for her husband’s job…..a mere 2 weeks before the event……and the 2nd in command had a family emergency that sent her to another state for over a month!
The board debated whether to cancel the event, but with 80 children RSVP’d , and still more rolling in, we called on our prayer warriors and encouraged our leader to carry on. (She claims to be a “craft-challenged” person, but she makes a beautiful snowflake ornament. She doesn’t like the chaos and unpredictability of these types of events, but her gift in organizing and details helped the event go smoothly. She had not signed up for this, but recognized that God may use the chance to grow all of us.) We offered to help and recruit our teens to help. We prayed hard and she pulled us all together beautifully. Today was the much dreaded anticipated event!
What was going on: There were 100 children participating, plus a slew of strollers and infants (who were being passed around to be cuddled). Smaller toddlers tagged along to “help” older siblings. The mom’s of older children volunteered to man the various craft tables. The mom’s of littles tried to keep them from running like screaming banshees around the paint tables reigned in and “on task”. Teenagers and mommies helped little hands paint ornaments, string beads, scoop bath salts and cocoa mix, and and tie fleece pillows. The afternoon was spent in an overwhelming din of noise, sticky projects, paint smudged hand prints, and silver glitter dustings. At the end, each child went home with 2 ornaments and 1 project to use as gifts for grandparents or family members that need yearly reassurance that home schooled children can do “normal things” too and be socialized….at least occasionally.
What was going on below the surface: An exhausted mom received encouragement that she would survive the toddler phase, even though she hadn’t slept for almost to 3 months and had 4 children under the age of 6.
Another mom was prayed for, on the spot….after tears sprang to her eyes when someone asked a casual, “Hey! How are you doing!?”
Old friends paused conversations to greet new members and introduced them to a few more friendly faces.
I watched a teen girl pick up and dust off a little girl that had been running when she tripped and fell. The teen sagely encouraged her to come be her little helper at the craft table, to avoid future incidents.
I watched a teen boy comfort a preschooler who was disheartened when his project came apart….carefully gathering the beads and helping to put it together again.
The mothers of older children seemed to understand the “desperate” look of some of the younger moms. I overheard several offers of, “Why don’t you go visit for a few minutes…..we can help your little one get set up to paint.” (To which these young mothers almost sobbed out of gratitude to actually have a chance talk to a person over the age of 5 without interruption……just for a few minutes.)
Wisdom was shared among generations……as were tears, and hugs, celebrations of little mile stones, heart aches, and sweet fellowship with our Savior.
It was a coming together of very different women, but we all had a common bond in Christ…..in our children…..in our homeschooling.
After thoughts: It was loud and chaotic, but beneath all the paint smudges and spilled glitter, there was an undercurrent of love, support, and encouragement during a season that is when many reach the bottom of their well. THIS is why we do this each year. We fret, we plan, we organize, but that is just for the surface stuff……each year, God has come through and touched countless hearts and prepared us to continue on in the purpose that He has called us to.
