Candy Nativity

Well, I switched up our advent books a little because I was so excited to do this little activity and I thought it was perfect for The First Night.  It's a beautiful and simple book about the night Jesus was born.  It begins with the shepherds in the field, describes the stable, and ends with what the baby felt - his mother's arms, his father's hands.  There is something very soothing and calming about both the text and illustrations in this book.  The art is color transparencies made from photographs of painted and carved wood and they are extremely beautiful.

After we read the book, I wanted to make the nativity together.  I thought the kids were going to love it!!  However, their main contribution was to severely deplete the supplies and they weren't really into putting it together.  Should have known.  I had fun making it and they had fun eating it, though, and we talked about what it must have been like for Baby Jesus in the manger, so all in all, I'm going to call this one a success.  Here are the supplies I thought I was going to use:

I ended up digging in the leftover Halloween candy for more odds and ends though.  (Yes, we still have some, but only because it got shoved to the back of the cupboard and forgotten about.)

Mary, Joseph, and the shepherd are made from miniature chocolate santas and fruit roll-ups:

The angel is a Hershey's kiss, a Whopper, and Smarties:

Baby Jesus is made from a miniature candy bar and peanut M&Ms covered in a fruit roll-up.  The "hay" is yellow jimmies:

The animals are just regular old animal crackers:

The inspiration for doing a nativity rather than a gingerbread house came from here.

Thanks for joining me for day 10 (can you believe it?) of The 12 Days of Christmas by Jackie and me!