Ho! Ho! Ho! Christmas is just around the corner and there is so much to be done. The Lake Rim Recreation Center will lend you a hand through its program to watch children to allow parents to finish their last minute Christmas shopping on Monday, Dec. 21 and Tuesday, Dec. 22 from 7:30 a.m. – 5:30 p.m.

“The parents will come and drop their kids off so they can do their shopping,” said Jaime Osborne, assistant recreation center supervisor. “We will first have free-play in the gym for about an hour and then start our craft activities.”

Holiday-themed arts and crafts are planned for the kids such as making paper snowflakes, decorating Christmas cookies, decorating reusable bags and making candy cane reindeer.

“We will make some ornaments that the kids can put on their Christmas tree,” said Osborne. “We are also going to make snowmen out of Styrofoam balls and the kids can decorate them.”

Osborne added that the children will decorate wreaths and donate them to an assisted-living facility in order to brighten someone’s day.

“We try to wait and see how many kids we will have before we determine which crafts we are going to do,” said Osborne. “If we have a small number of kids we are going to do technical crafts and if we have a larger number of kids we will do easy crafts.”

Osborne added that there is a staff on site specifically for this program. Games will be played with the kids as well as watching holidaythemed movies, which is the culminating activity of the day.

Participants, ages 6-12, must bring their own non-perishable lunch each day. The cost is $10 per day. For more information, call 867-1147.