Last night’s book was Merry Christmas Splat.
In the story Splat writes his letter to Santa and then worries that he has not been good enough. We used this as an opportunity to write our letters to Santa. You can find many different templates online for letters to Santa. I let the girls pick one out and printed 3 copies. We talked about what you write in a good Santa letter. Kaitlyn wrote hers independently, I wrote for Eileen as she dictated to me, and we tried to get something out of Michael (without too many suggestions).
I wanted to start something a bit different this year so I combined two ideas on interest. I picked up some large clear plastic Christmas balls at Michaels and each child put their handprint on a ball. I then wrote their name on the ball and the year 2012. If you are doing this make sure to use permanent marker or it will wipe off (my scrapbooking markers wiped off too easily). Next was the tricky part. I folded and rolled up a copy of their letters to Santa and put it in each of their balls. Of course we made a copy to mail to Santa as well. All that was left was to add some ribbon so we can hang them on the tree. I am having trouble getting a good picture of them so these will have to do for now. Once our tree is up I will try and take better pictures with them hanging on the tree.
Mommy's Lessons 
Such a good idea!!!