December 16

Happy December 16th 2010
The gift and magic of Story:

Need something to liven up a party? Need to read something in your child's class? Here is an interactive story that's fun...

Blackout in the Workshop

The Narrator reads the script. The characters (use groups if you can) say the following exclamations every time their name is mentioned:
Santa: A loud-- HO HO HO
Elves: HEE, HEE, HEE
Mrs. Claus: Oh my!
Rudolf: Ta-DaIt was Christmas Eve.

SANTA was in his workshop with all of his ELVES. They were busy putting the finishing touches on all the toys and games for the good girls and boys. A few of the ELVES were in the middle of painting a wooden rocking horse when suddenly the lights went out! SANTA said, "Oh, no!" The ELVES gasped and couldn't see, so they got a few brushstrokes of paint on each other. SANTA put out his hand and tried to find a light switch on the wall. He tripped over MRS. CLAUS and fell ker-splat on the floor. The ELVES helped her up. Santa felt around in the ark again and found the light switch. He flipped it up and down, but it didn't work. He sent one of the ELVES to check the electrical box. Everyone heard thump, bump, crash! as the elf stumbled through the workshop toward the door.MRS. CLAUS turned to SANTA and suggested that they play games in the dark while they waited. SANTA thought that was a good idea. He asked one of the ELVES next to him to say something and everyone had to guess who the elf was by the sound of his voice. Then the elf next to him did the same until they went around the workshop room.Slowly, the door started to open. A bright light that was tinted red began to fill the room. In the doorway stood a huge figure with four legs and something sticking out of its head! "Oh!" said all of the ELVES and MRS. CLAUS. "It's RUDOLF!" cried SANTASure enough the elf who was went to check the electrical box found RUDOLF the red-nosed reindeer and asked for his help, because the wires in the box were broken. There was now enough light in the workshop so that the toys and games could be finished by the ELVES and loaded on the sleigh for SANTA. Thank goodness for RUDOLF!! The End! Sing Rudolf the red-nosed-reindeer.


The Gift of Story
How to make up a story for your child(ren) or friend or spouse about them at Christmas...It is one of the best ways to connect...By Steffani Raff

The wonder and magic of Christmas is captured for me in one image, a Christmas tree radiating its soft glow with lights twinkling, ornaments sparkling, and gifts scattered under the rich green of its branches. When I was a child that sight generated feelings of anticipation – I couldn't wait to see what presents I got. As an adult, it still generates feelings of anticipation, but for an entirely different reason – I can't wait to see how my children respond to what gifts I got them for Christmas.

Before I became a mother I had no idea how much you could love a child. Christmas became about finding and giving the perfect gift instead of receiving it. But finding just the right gift wasn't easy. My love was too big to be packaged up in a toy I bought at Wal-Mart. As I struggled with this dilemma a distant memory came to my mind.

I was 7 years old and ripping through presents with gusto. Wrapping paper flying, short squeals of excitement, gasps of joy when I saw my Christmas treasures. Then I came to a soft package and noticed my mom taking special notice. She said, “That one is from me.” The initial excitement I experienced with my mom's interest was instantly quelled when I saw what was inside – a scarf. I didn't want a scarf. I let it fall limply to the ground. My mom looked away and I knew I had hurt her feelings. I felt bad. Really bad. I learned later that she had spent weeks hand-knitting the scarf for me. She was trying to put a little piece of herself into one of the gifts she gave to me.

This memory sparked a Christmas trend for my husband and me for years to come – making a special gift for each child every year. It also started an epidemic of staying up until 5:30am frantically trying to finish the things we were making. There were some years we went to bed fifteen minutes before the kids woke up Christmas morning! Luckily, our children were a lot smarter than I was as a child and they adored the gifts we made for them. These gifts, with a little of our love embedded in them, were by far our favorites. That feeling of viewing a scene through a soft-focus lens always seemed to come when we slowed down to open these presents. These were the moments that held our Christmas joy.

Then, one year I started thinking about Christmas in October – a rare occurrence for me, thinking ahead. I was musing about the moment under the tree when our children would open the “especially from us” presents. I had no idea what those presents would be but it occurred to me that what I really wanted for our family was to capture the feeling that was created around the Christmas tree more often in our day-to-day life.
How could I do it?

I decided to create a bedtime story – a story that would unfold chapter after chapter throughout the whole year. I began working on the characters of the story – three rather extraordinary children who decided that regular life was just too ordinary for them, so they became pirates. I scribbled away at several chapters before Christmas, put them in a binder, and wrapped the binder up.

How to create the mood?
Part of the magic of the Christmas tree was the setting it creates with the warm glow that fills the room from the Christmas tree lights. I wanted to create a similar feeling for our bedtime story. I wrapped a long taper candle in one package and an old-fashioned chamber stick in the other.

Christmas morning came (and that year I was in bed before midnight !) When it came time to open the last present, I had never been so excited to see our children's reactions – this was the best Christmas present I had ever come up with. They each unwrapped one of the three items at the same time. Then they each looked up at me with an “ I don't get it ” look in their eyes.
“What is it?”
“Read the cover, Abby.”
“Pirates in Pajamas: A bedtime time tale of daring adventures on the high sea.” Their eyes still revealed confusion. “You'll understand tonight. It's a bedtime story.”
“A bedtime story?” they said, intrigued.
“Yep, I made up a bedtime story just for you.”

That night we had to tell them to brush their teeth twice – they were so excited to hear the story they got ready for bed a little too fast. All four of my favorite people were snuggled on the same bed: my three children and my husband. My children were wiggling with excitement in the dark. I lit the tapered candle and walked in the room. The effect was instant. A quiet excitement crept in while the glow from the candle softened features and brightened eyes.

Telling the story
I began, “ Once upon a time there were three children named Pop, Fizz, and Whattalatta. They were rather extraordinary children who lived rather ordinary lives. They all longed for a real adventure but none of them ever spoke it aloud until one day Whattalatta made a most superb suggestion, ‘Let's be pirates.'

‘Pirates! We'll all be pirates from now on.' Fizz chimed. ‘Children never have adventures, but pirates? Pirates have nothing but adventures!' And so it was decided… 'Pirates?' said their mother with shock and dismay. 'Pirates?' said their father with amusement and disbelief. 'Yes, pirates.' they said. ‘We'll have to leave you of course, but we'll come back and visit.' 'Leave? You're barely seven.' 'It doesn't matter how old you are when you're a pirate.' And though their parents begged and bribed, Pop, Fizz and Whattalatta would not change their minds.”
When the first chapter was rounding the corner into the second I paused, then blew out the candle. My children protested, “It's not over! You can't stop there! We have to know what happens next.”

“No, it's not over. That's the best part about this present – it doesn't have to end today.”
And it still hasn't ended, even after three years…

Creating your own brand of bedtime story
I'm not the type who can create cohesive stories on the spot. I'm usually too tired at the end of the day to be creative. I realized after writing the first several chapters of the story, I needed to simplify my creation method or I wouldn't be able to keep it going. I have since found several tricks that made it much easier and more fulfilling:

1. Create your characters. I chose pirates. My children were in a pirate phase with their imaginative play and I thought I could have a lot of fun with children who insisted they were actually pirates. Fleshing out the personalities of the three characters in the story was easy – I simply borrowed from my children's personalities.

2. Create your setting. I knew they would have to have a pirate ship with every conceivable convenience on board, as they would leave their Mommy and Daddy in search of adventure. I worked on that first and let the other settings we have explored come with each chapter.

3. Imagination + Story Structure = Success. Instead of making up each chapter entirely on my own I began using the plot or story structure of lesser known folk tales. I replaced the characters with my own, and the setting with my own, and then played it like a movie in my mind.

4. Use a Story Map. I soon found that making a visual outline of the story was much faster than writing out the entire story. I used a combination of words and simple drawings to remind me of the order of the story just before I told it. The simpler the map, the easier it was to follow the directions.

5. Record as you tell. I got into the habit of recording each new story as I told it. A simple digital voice recorder makes this easy to do. Then it can be burned onto a CD for listening to later. I found my children love to listen to the CD we've made from previous chapters. And at some point I can transcribe the stories and have a written copy as well.

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If you would like to try this process of creating a story, Steffani has developed audio files to guide you through a story plot, and quickly create an entirely new story (or chapter of a story). Check out her website www.piratesinpajamas.com, click on the ‘Create a Story' link and try the activities suggested. After the initial investment of creating your characters and setting you can create brand new stories using the imagination-based guided story journey in less than 10 minutes!