“Fun” Family craft day

All my grandchildren are quite accustomed to my dragging out craft supplies and setting them to work on a project. The adult people in my family, not so much. So, on the day after Thanksgiving when we were all together and I pulled out paints for a project for ALL of us to do, there were some raised eyebrows and I’m sure a few rolled eyes.

Fortunately, the weather was balmy so we were able to spread out on the screened porch and keep plenty of distance between various family pods. I had purchased 10 small plain wooden cut out ornaments and thought that they would be fun to paint.

Instead of painting one for ourselves, though, I thought it would be fun for each of us to put our name in a hat and draw names to paint for someone else. It worked great!!! The youngest (Braxton) got to choose first and was so delighted with his choice he clapped his hands and got right to work.

Jack, the oldest, chose last and was a wee bit slower picking up the paintbrush and deciding on colors. But, amazingly enough soon everyone – adults and children alike – were all under the spell of the paintbrush.

It was fun to see different personalities come out. Andy spent a great deal of time making sure that his ornament was perfectly symmetrical. Cameron painted both sides of hers with brilliant, passionate precision and was done first. Of course.

Ellie kept glancing over at me and smiling so I wasn’t surprised to find out that she had chosen my name. We ended up doing ours alike – I painted a red truck for “Papa” Jack and she painted one for me.

All in all in was one of my more successful family craft ventures. Not only did we enjoy it for the hour (plus or minus) that we spent painting, but we now each have an ornament to hang on our tree every year, reminding us of that day in 2020 when we stood apart and came together to paint for each other.