Today P2 and P3 had a special visitor, Madeline, from Kathleen's Attic. Madeline shared with us the reasons behind some of our Christmas traditions.
We found out that Christmas trees started in Germany and that people used to only put them up on Christmas Eve. She also told us that it used to be someone's job to stand beside the tree with a bucket of water as they used candles for lights and sometimes the branches caught fire!
We also found out that the tradition of sending Christmas cards started because one man thought it would be quicker to have cards made and sign them instead of writing letters to his friends at Christmas.
Madeline told us that the tradition of Christmas stockings started in Turkey with St Nicholas who dropped some small presents down the chimney of a family with three daughters and they landed in the girls' stockings as the hung drying by the fire. She had some different illustrations of what Santa has worn over the years and shared that he didn't wear red until an artist was asked to provide an illustration to accompany the poem 'Twas the Night Before Christmas.
The best bit, however, was when we got to look at and try out some of the old toys Madeline brought along that Santa would have brought to boys and girls in years gone by. We had lots of fun testing them out and playing together. Toys are lots of fun no matter how old they are.
