…and if there’s one thing I hardly ever recommend doing with your kids, it’s painting.  Painting….most of the time….is the pits.

However, earlier yesterday evening, I had a weak moment in Hobby Lobby and allowed the kids to buy several little ceramic ornaments to paint.  For one, they were cheap.  Normally the cost about $0.60, but all unfinished ornaments are 50% off this week, so they rang up at a mere $0.30.  At that price I hardly cared if they decided to throw them out the window on the way home.  Uh….never mind, Dirty Harry.  I didn’t just say that.  I really do care if you do that, and if you ever try it, you’re grounded.

I’ve seen these types of ornaments at Wal-mart and other craft stores, but Hobby Lobby had a large selection of them that celebrate the true meaning of Christmas (i.e. manger scenes, crosses, angels, wise men, etc.) instead of the standard snowmen and candy canes.  Not that there’s anything wrong with candy canes and the like, mind you.  We bought an eclectic mixture of Christmas symbols, and I liked having the variety.

So, like I said, we painted.  And it was fun.  I recommend it.  The kids now have some nice little gifts to give to a few of their friends and family members at almost no cost to me since for some odd reason we already had almost an entire closet full of acrylic paint.  Weird, since we never paint and all….

After an evening of painting and listening to Christmas music, here are a few suggestions and/or guidelines I’ve come up with in the off chance that you also have a closet full of acrylic paint and actually decide to use it someday with your own youngsters.

1.  Make sure that if you’re using paint pens that you demonstrate the proper opening technique.  Otherwise they may open the pen at the barrel and not the cap which will result in a lot of paint in places that you don’t want it.

2.  Don’t sweat the small stuff.  If your son accidentally paints three eyes on a donkey, just laugh about it.  If they want to paint a wise man’s headress pink, so be it.  But if they want to paint a tattoo on Baby Jesus’ forearm try to stop them.

3.  You can never put down too many layers of newspaper.  I’m serious.  Forty layers is still not enough.  Try to layer the table, the floor, the kids, yourself, and the dog.

4.  If a Christmas song comes on the radio that you really don’t like during this activity, just imagine that it’s being sung by Bing Crosby, and immediately it improves….even “Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer” sounds almost classy sung by the crooner.  Almost.

5.  Only do this after all of your children who are under the age of three go to bed.  Do not feel guilty about this.  They will never remember being excluded, and it will save you a few gray hairs.

6.  Paint something yourself.  I painted this figurine, using my own kids as inspiration….

It’s not bad if you ignore the blothcy freckles, the smudgy mouths, and the splatty (splatty???) boots.

7.  Paint all the ornaments that you bought in one sitting.  It is far too much trouble to clean everything up just to drag it out again a day or two later to paint the rest.  I don’t care if the kids are whining that their backs hurt and that they just want to go watch the Inkheart  DVD.  Make them finish.  You’ll be glad you did later, and chances are that they will be so sick of painting that they won’t want to do it again for about three years or so.

8.  Above all else, have fun and enjoy one another’s company….even if it kills you.

Death by paint….it’s the only way to go.