Darren's blog: Dec 16, 2008

The word Christmas comes from Cristes maesse, or "Christ's Mass." It is the time when Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus.
As it does not say in the Bible, no-one knows when Jesus was born, neither which day nor even year. One reason for this is that at the time Jesus was born people used the Roman calendar which was different to ours.

It is now believed that Jesus was born between 7BC and 4BC.
Around 350 years after Jesus birth, Pope Julius 1 chose 25 December as the date of the Nativity. This date seemed to be a good choice because many people had from early times celebrated other winter festivals around this time.

There was the Roman Saurnalia where Saturn, the god of Harvest, was honoured by merrymaking. In Northern Europe, Yule, giant logs were trimmed with ribbons and green plants and burned in honour of the gods who it was hoped would make the sun shine more brightly.
Both of these festivals were around the time of the winter solstice which is the day in Northern parts of the world that is the shortest of the year. With our modern instruments we now know this to happen on 21 December.

Christmas Day is a public holiday in Christian countries. Festivities include the exchanging of presents. To children this is probably the most exciting day of the year when if they have been good they can open the gifts left by Santa Claus.

Make a Perky Penguins Christmas Card

What you need

A5 sized card
white paint
black paint
small paintbrush
black felt-tip pen
glue stick
old sponge (foam)
small piece of orange paper
scissors
cotton bud

What you do:

1 Write a Christmas message of your choice inside the card.

2. Dab the sponge lightly into the white paint and gently dab the bottom of your folded card to create the snowy ground. Only create a thin covering of 'snow' so that you can still see some of the original colour showing through. Allow to dry.

3. Using your small brush paint black oval shapes. Allow to dry.

4. After carefully washing out your brush, paint white tummies on your penguin bodies. Allow to dry. You may need to add another coat of white when dry.

5. Using the black felt-tip pen draw little webbed feet on your penguins.

6. Gently dip the cotton bud into the white paint, only getting a tiny amount of paint on it. Practise making small dots on a piece of paper first and then make two tiny dots for eyes on each penguin. When these are dry add a black dot in each eye using the black felt-tip pen. Cut tiny orange paper triangles and give each penguin a beak.