• Involve children in decorating for Christmas with easy craft ideas.trimming the tree image by Scott Slattery from Fotolia.com
  
  Parents with young children home from school on winter break are always on the lookout for fun activities that will keep the kids busy. Use these Christmas craft ideas to encourage childrens' creativity, involve them in decorating the house for Christmas, and keep their hands and minds occupied for a time.
  
  

Christmas Placemats

• Cut off the plastic above the zipper on six plastic sandwich bags, being sure to leave the zipper itself intact. Trace the outline of the cut bag onto a piece of paper, then cut just inside the lines you traced so that the paper rectangle will fit inside of the sandwich bag. Do this for each of six rectangles that you will need. Decorate the rectangles, making sure that they are laid out with the two longest sides running up and down. As suggested on the Busy Bee Kids Crafts website, rectangles can be decorated "with flat pictures, ribbon or anything else you have around. You can trace around cookie cutters on Christmas paper, use old cards, or write messages on your rectangles." Slide each rectangle into a sandwich bag, close the bags, and then arrange three bags above three others, making sure that they all touch at the edges. Then, cut a long piece of colored duct tape in half so that it is thinner and adhere it to the edges of the sandwich bags in the middle of the placemat. This should stick all of the sandwich bags together. Cut two more pieces of duct tape to a thinner size and place them along the two vertical "seams" on the placemat, between each top and bottom pair of sandwich bags. Fold the ends of the duct tape pieces onto the back of the placemat. Finally, make a border for the edges of each placemat by cutting four long pieces of duct tape and folding them in half over the edges of the paper, so that half of the width of the pieces of tape are on the back of the placemat.
  
  

Snowflake Ornaments

• Help children arrange wagon wheel pasta in the shape of a snowflake to make a Christmas ornament.snowflake image by Egor Tkachenko from Fotolia.com
  
  Cut a large square of wax paper and place it on a baking sheet. Then, mix one half cup of dry wagon wheel pasta with one-fourth cup of white paint and two tablespoons of white glue until the pasta is covered in white. This mixture will probably be enough for two ornaments. Arrange pasta pieces into a snowflake shape on the wax paper, being sure that all of the pieces touch another piece. If children struggle with making a snowflake shape, allow them to fill in a large snowflake-shaped cookie cutter with pasta pieces. If desired, sprinkle glitter over the snowflake ornament and then allow it to dry for 24 hours. When dry, peel the ornament off of the wax paper gently and use a piece of ribbon or yarn to hang it on the Christmas tree.
  
  

Sparkly Christmas Tree

• Kids will love using glitter to make a sparkly Christmas tree craft.pots of glitter image by Warren Millar from Fotolia.com
  
  Pour some glue onto a Styrofoam cone and even it out with a craft stick. Then, pour glitter onto a paper plate and roll the cone on the plate. When the cone is covered in glitter, glue Christmas-themed confetti or sequins onto the cone and let it dry.