Advent Brainstorm

OK.  We need two kinds of things:

First, a list of Christmas (religious and cultural) images and ideas.  Things that might end up being the picture theme for a game.  Remember--winter is OK, Santa Claus is not.  (For this purpose--I have Santa Claus decorations all over my house at Christmas, but I have reasons for wanting to leave him out of this production.

In classic brainstorming mode, one idea may spark another.  So, if someone has already said something, and you have an offshoot from that that is more specific, add it in.  (So, Snowflakes and Paper Snowflakes would be two separate entries).

I'll start us off:

Christmas Imagery (1 point per addition)

Cookies
Camels
Angels
Snowflakes-RK
Holly/wreaths/Baubles -SE
Snow capped Christmas trees-SE 
Ginger bread man/house-SE
Stars (or single star)-SE
Christmas Bells-SE
Nativity scene-SE
Candles-SE
Snow man (not sure if that's allowed)-SE  I think so, I was toying with the idea of a snowman creche at one point-RH
Christmas stockings-SE 
Candy canes-SE
Christmas lights-SE
Carols/carolers-SE 
Christmas cards-SE
Baby animals/Lambs-SE
mistletoe-SE  This one makes me just a little nervous about using, but great for brainstorming.
Church-SE
Ice skating? (not sure, we don't have that here)-SE
Scarf/Beanie-SE
Family-SE
Feasts/Eggnog? (again not sure,we don't have that here)-SE
Gifts (not sure if that's appropriate, but not the gifts Santa may give)-SE   ABSOLUTELY.  I figure the wise men started the gift giving tradition
Baby Jesus-SE
Snow globes-SE
Pine cones-SE
Those flowers used in decorations (Poinsettia)-SE  



The second thing that we will need are actual ideas for possible days.  Maybe just starters for ideas  I'll give a couple of examples.  Chip in with other ideas that YOU have, or add to what I have.

Day Ideas (5 points per new concept/1 point per elaboration)

A memory verse game that has to do with frosting cookies, or making them.  Any ideas how this would work? I had a thought this morning, that people might pair verses with references or maybe just stories with the gospel that each one is in, by putting chocolate kisses on top of cookies.  Maybe the story could be already on the cookie in the form of a line drawing done in "chocolate" (Though it would kind of mess up a beautifully made cookie if you could frost it that way to stick a kiss on top of a picture).  Still, this is all make believe.  I don't think this is the only idea we can use that has to do with cookies.  Feel free to contribute more.

Camels.  What can we do with the magi and their camels?  Maybe lining the camels up to spell a verse out?  Ready to set out on the trip to seek the one born to be King of the Jews.  Or getting them saddled?  Giving them food and water?  Any ideas here?

Angels--When they click on the right word Angels sing it -RK  I really like this.  We could do this with a bible verse so that it would be a little different than putting the words in order.  There could be right words and wrong words.  Maybe the words could be written on pieces of sheet music?  If you click on a wrong word, you just get to hear the word being read and nothing more happens.  When you click on the right word (the next one in the verse) the angels sing it, it goes up in the line, and the wind blows those pieces of paper away and blows in the next set of words.

Snowflakes--Drifting across the screen with words.-RK  When they click on the right word, what else happens besides that the words line up to spell the verse?

Creche/Nativity set--We can give them a creche set to play with, maybe getting one additional piece each day.  Alanna has a spectacular set collected over the years.  I'm going to ask her if I can take photos of the individual pieces and use those.  I've always wanted to do something with nativity sets that couldn't be broken.  This would be an unbreakable set.

Maps  Shani's presence here gives me an idea for Christmas all around the world.

I'd also like to do an interactive map of Israel so that the children could learn where Nazareth is, where Bethlehem and Jerusalem are.  Not sure yet how this would work, but a map with hot-spots that do something when you click on them is fairly simple to build.