Fairy Fun

When our children were little, a fairy family would come to our house right after Thanksgiving to stay until Christmas day. They came for fun adventures and to be Santa's helpers in spreading Christmas happiness.

Our kids built elaborate houses for them each year - sometimes out of graham crackers, other times we made homemade gingerbread, and when they wanted a really fancy design, cardboard covered with vanilla wafers. They decorated the yards with candy cane toboggan runs, gumdrop trees and silver sprinkle skating rinks.

The fairies wrote notes to the children to tell of their escapades. One year Tom broke his leg because he got going too fast on the toboggan run and crashed into the gumdrop forest. Another year Melinda and her winged horse needed a high dive to practice jumping into a swimming pool. Aunt Matilda got a cold. Uncle Henry needed honey candy  to cure a tooth ache.

The children watched for the tiny foot prints and little wings. Each night before bed our little ones wrote a letter to the fairies.

The best part was having the fairies help with holiday service projects. Everyone made cards and cookies for older people in the ward. Tiny foot prints magically appeared on the envelopes. Everyone sang for neighbors. We were all sure we could hear the fairy voices. The winged creatures were very good to scout out a house to see if it was safe to door-bell ditch.

We had lots of good times with this over the years, and now the grandkids are in on the fun. They have to watch out, though, because the parents still like to make the houses and get in on the excitement.

Try this in your family. Magic is part of Christmas.