By Rachel Kubicek

For Margie Black, a snow day can translate into a break from the routine.

“I love snow days,” said Black, a Spanish teacher for Joplin, Mo., Area Catholic Schools. “It gives me a chance to spend time at home with my family.”

She spent a recent snow day at home with her four children: Mary Katherine, 13; Scottie, 12; Thomas, 3; and Lily, almost 2.

“I think I’m worse than my students - I think,” Black said. “As a teacher, I am all about the snow days. It’s nice around the holidays, too, to have a little extra time with each other.”

After her children spent some time playing outdoors in the morning, enjoying the wintry weather, the family gathered to make cookie cutter Christmas ornaments out of craft foam and to decorate Christmas bags.

Mary Katherine helped her younger siblings with the decorating, and she and Thomas used their markers to turn his snowman ornament into a “Harry Potter” snowman, complete with glasses and a lightning-bolt scar on his forehead.

“What’s great about craft foam is you can just press the cookie cutter into the foam, and it leaves a deep enough mark in the foam so you don’t have pen marks,” Black said.

With another stay-at-home day predicted, Black said she was making tentative plans to bake Christmas cookies with her kids, or maybe watch a movie.

Provided, of course, that she can get the supplies.

“(My husband) will call before he comes home from work, so maybe he can stop and pick up supplies for tomorrow or even run by the movie store,” Black said.

Black offered instructions for crafts that parents can make with their children when they’re snowed in.

Cookie cutter Christmas ornaments

Supplies:

Cookie cutters in Christmas shapes

Craft foam

Scissors

Markers or paint

Hole punch

Twine

Press the cookie cutters onto the craft foam until there is an imprint of the shape. Carefully cut the shape out of the foam with scissors, assisting children who might be too young to use scissors. Decorate the shape with markers or paint. Punch a hole in the top of the ornament. Thread string through the hole and tie it in a circle big enough to fit over a Christmas tree branch.

Christmas bags

Supplies:

Several plain bags in various sizes

Fabric with fusible webbing/iron-on fabric

Iron

Scissors

Glue

Cards from previous years

Cut Christmas-bulb shapes or holly shapes out of the webbing. Peel the backing from the fabric. Place the shapes on the bag. Iron the fabric to set the fabric adhesive. Or, cut shapes from the front of old Christmas cards and glue them to the front of the bag.

Rachel Kubicek writes for The Joplin (Mo.) Globe.