Make a "He Is The Gift" Paper Box to Hang on Your Tree

I did this project with my seminary class and with my family, but it would be great to do as a church activity. First I showed them the "He is the Gift" Christmas video.  To see the video click on the link below:

http://www.mormon.org/christmas

 Then I had them make a box out of paper.  Inside the box they write what their gift is to Christ this year.

I printed mine on a parchment paper to look like the 1800's but you could use any style of paper that you like.  

Here is the printout:

I printed mine on card-stock, but I think that a nice thick colorful paper would work just as good.

Once it is printed cut along all of the edges. 

Then write what your gift to Christ is in the middle. 

Fold it so that the printed side is on the inside of the box.

Glue all of the edges together then decorate with paper, ribbon, markers, stamps and a bow.  I had the students put a string on it so that they could hang it from their Christmas tree.

Here is the finished gift:

Here is an example of boxes done with many different colors of scrapbook paper.

Visit my fun and free Christmas page for more ideas.

Christmas Nauvoo Style

This year for my seminary class I decided to celebrate Christmas with a touch of Nauvoo. 

 I found this amazing article on the LDS.ORG web site. 

 Here is the link:

 https://www.lds.org/new-era/1973/12/from-a-nauvoo-pantry?lang=eng

I took the exact article and retyped it in and old typewriter font and then printed it out on old looking parchment and handed it out to the students.

Here are the printouts for you:

Front:

Back:

Christmas with the Prophet Joseph Smith

I also found this great article from the Ensign about how Joseph Smith celebrated Christmas: 

https://www.lds.org/ensign/1978/12/christmas-with-the-prophet-joseph?lang=eng

I told a few stories from that.  In this article is the story of Porter Rockwell showing up at a Christmas party.  It was a good time for me to introduce Porter Rockwell to my class.  I also played them the song about Porter Rockwell called "A Modern Day Sampson" from the CD "A Nashville Tribute to the Prophet Joseph".  To see the band's link just click on the picture below.

Treats

For a treat I provided hot chocolate and ginger snap cookies, since ginger snaps are one of the recipe during that time period.  



Craft
I also researched the type of Christmas decorations that were popular during the 1800's and found that they were usually handmade paper ornaments.  Since this Christmas the Church is promoting the "He is the gift" video, I decided to show that video and have them make a "He is the gift" box to hang on their tree.  To see how to make one just click on the picture below.

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D&C Scripture Mastery #9 D&C 19:16-19 Word Search and Puzzle

I printed out the Scripture Mastery below on multi-colored papers and handed them out to the students.  Then they each cut it out to be as difficult as they wanted.  I print them in different colors so that if they mixed up their puzzle with their neighbors they would be able to tell their own.  Then each student practiced putting the puzzle back together. I gave them all a baggie to store pieces in.

To use these printouts for yourself just click on them to make them larger.  Then right click your mouse and save it into your pictures, or copy and paste them into your printing program.

I also gave them each this word search puzzle to work on.  All the words of the scripture are in the puzzle, but each word is only in the puzzle once.  So repeated words will not be in the puzzle an additional time.

On the back of the word search I printed all the Scripture Mastery that we have completed so far.  The students are to write the scripture reference below each clue:

Here is the target front for D&C Scripture Mastery 9:

Target back:

The Seminary in a Sack item for this scripture is a sacrament cup.

To check all the Seminary in a Sack items click on the picture below:

To see all of my seminary ideas click on the picture below: