Christmas holidays- End of school term or just the beginning?

Last night I watched Seven years in Tibet with Brad Pitt. It had been sitting in a drawer for months since I'd found it on the shelves in a charity shop and I decided to take over the TV for an evening and watch it. Once again I was amazed at the information you can learn when you are not 'trying to educate' either yourself or others. My eldest son came in to join me and we found ourselves talking about the invasion of China into Tibet in 1951 and the exile of the Dalai Llama to India. I've just spent half an hour googling Wikipedia for more information on a subject about which I had very little knowledge.

I was delighted when my Autistic son decided to join in and dress the Christmas tree .  At thirteen he still secretly gets excited at the thought of presents and Christmas generally and had  been asking when it was going up for several days.He still didn't want his photo taken as he put up the decorations!

On the other hand his twin was quite happy for me to take pictures of her as she made crackers! We discovered that the Christmas cracker was invented after a log rolled out of the burning embers onto the hearth next to a sweet maker called Thomas Smith who came up with the idea of putting a 'cracker' in his packages of sweets.There are lots of Christmas ideas on the Victorian Farm website.We also learned that during the second world war people made tinsel from the Chaff scattered by the Luftwaffe to break up radio waves and that what we know as Christmas carols were in fact originally hymns which were not necessarily associated with the Christmas period. It suddenly occurred to me that since we began home education journey we no longer think twice about researching further into subjects which we find interesting.It's not about 'learning" because we "have to". It's a natural inquisitiveness as we are interested and there is no pressure because no one is making us do it.

We put up a Christmas card my son made at school a few years ago which embraces the spirit of Christmas.

and arranged the tiny Nativity on the stove which my sister bought for the children when they were little and which is still a firm favourite!

and of course no Christmas would be complete without a walk in the fields to collect Holly and Ivy for decorations!

Wishing you all a very Peaceful Christmas!

And if anyone wants to know what I want for Christmas , well this home educating mum just about sums it up!http://simplehomeschool.net/saint-nick/