Our Halloween party was a great success – the toddlers were incredibly cute in their costumes and the face-painting and balloon shapes by Aoife Moore of Giddy Goat’s Parties were a huge hit. Thanks to everyone who participated and made the event a lovely introduction to the spooky festival for the kids.
Christmas Party
We will be holding our Christmas Party on Wednesday the 16th of December – we’ll be decorating (and eating!) gingerbread men, making decorations and hosting a very special guest. Come along and get the festive season off to a fun start.
There will also be a Christmas evening celebration for the Grown Ups – see this website for details.
There will be no playgroup on December the 23rd or 30th but we look forward to resuming our regular sessions in the New Year – we return on January 6th. Please see the Calendar for future events.
Grant Awarded
We were delighted to receive a grant for new toys and equipment from the Co. Kildare Early Childcare Committee, which means that Santa is not the only one writing a list this December! The much-needed funds will help us to update our resources and offer more activities such as arts and crafts for the toddlers. A ‘wish-list’ for ideas about what the group needs will be circulating every Wednesday so please add your suggestions. Thanks to everyone in the Early Childcare Committee offices in Clane.
Guide to Parenting
Again we’d like to ask all members of our wider community to help us by contributing to our proposed Guide to Parenting in Kilcullen. Please email guide@kilcullentoddlergroup.com or drop your suggestions into Kilcullen Community Library. All ideas, suggestions, reviews and contributions are very welcome.
A final thought..
With Christmas approaching, conversations between the carers in the group have turned to preparations and presents. For many of us, this is the first year that our toddlers are actually aware of Santa with his bag of gifts, and their genuine delight in the decorations and lights is lovely to see.
As parents we are looking forward to creating a special celebration for our kids and to establishing family traditions that will, hopefully, remain treasured in their memories. However we all know that this has been a tough year for a lot of members of our community; families have been facing financial uncertainty and sudden changes in circumstance; many of us have had to reassess our expectations and standard of living. These issues are stressful at the best of times and Christmas can add even more pressure. The general consensus among our group is that we’ll all be scaling back this year, and really trying to focus on the ‘true spirit’ of Christmas, spending time with our loved ones and enjoying the fact that the Santa list for toddlers is still, relatively, manageable.
We wish all our members – past and present – a very Merry Christmas .
