Baby Jesus craft

You will need:

• An empty toilet paper tube
• A brown crayon or marker
• A 3" x 3" piece of white felt or cloth
• Scraps of yellow construction paper
• Scissors
• Glue stick
• A paper person (ours was a die cut paper person leftover from scrapbooking, but you could use anything from large craft stick with a drawn on face to just a paper circle head with Sharpie eyes. You won't see his body so that doesn't matter.)

To assemble:

      Color the outside of the toilet paper tube with brown crayon. It doesn't need to be filled in all the way. Large gaps or scribbles work nicely too. :) Cut the tube lengthwise and glue the rounded parts together. One portion should scoop upwards to form a cradle for baby Jesus and the other should scoop downward to form the legs of the manger.

     Cut the yellow construction paper into thin strips to resemble straw and glue to the inside of the cradle part of the "manger". Wrap your baby Jesus in the piece of white felt to create his "swaddling clothes". Glue the ends of the felt so it stays around him. Glue the back of Jesus's swaddling clothes to the "straw".

Viola! You have a baby Jesus in a manger.

...She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger...
Luke 2:7

      This only took about 15 minutes for us - even with David doing most of the work. We had a super opportunity to talk about Jesus. It was such a precious time. I love planting seeds for Jesus at Christmas time. It makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside. :) No joke. Warm and fuzzy.

      I told him a very scaled down version of the Christmas story. He was really bummed when we got to the "no room in the inn" part. He let out a very disappointed "oh, man" and then asked where they went. I told him they slept in the barn and Jesus' mommy and daddy made a bed for him (appealing to the fix-it side of him) in the manger by the animals. I asked him if he knew what a manger was and he said "I have no idea, Mom." I explained that it was the animals' food dish. To be honest, I think at this point he was probably more caught up with the fact that the cows then had no food than the fact that sweet little baby Jesus was laying in a nasty manger. What a little boy - stomach and food first, compassion and emotions later. :)