It’s not about whether Santa Claus is real or not— it’s the story we tell about him that matters.
Tsveti Kamova is the founder of Red Paper Plane. She is right next to her little designers Sonny & Annie when they explore the marvels of the world, complete challenges, learn new things and follow their creative passion every day. Twenty-two missions later, Tsveti is completely devoted to her vision of changing the way kids learn and play and encouraging parents to spend more quality time with their little heroes.
We developed our special Christmas Edition with lots of enthusiasm. We set upon the challenge of ‘How might we present Christmas from various perspectives and create an opportunity for quality family time?’ We worked really hard until we finally put the pieces together. I could’t wait to show the new edition to the kids and start playing. This time, though, instead of testing the mission long before its “official” release date (as we usually do) I decided to wait until the holiday season. That’s why we had no actual photos of our mission playthrough when we released the Christmas Edition.
We always play one mission at a time, going through the whole process — we start, play, complete it and store away the mission diary in the drawer, together with all previous missions; and only then we choose a new one. Of course, there were times when we played two missions simultaneously — during the summer holidays Sonny did that, yet each of them was at a different time of day. On a regular day, however, having no more than 2 hours per day to spend with the kids (usually in the evenings), we play only one mission. And Annie (3 y/o), our first-time designer, can follow the process only when focusing on one thing at a time.
Mission: Storyteller — “My Christmas Story”
To kickstart the Christmas Edition, I picked Mission: Storyteller — “My Christmas Story” because it was still November 20th and still not the time for Christmas decoration or holiday postcards. The mission was an ideal introduction to the holiday theme. I printed two diaries — one for each kid, cut out only one set of cards, laminated them and rushed to pick the kids from kindergarten with a smile on my face. On our way home I told them we’ll be trying a new mission at home, but did not reveal which one it would be. We came home, took the shoes off, changed our clothes, got ready and I handed the diaries…
We could not stop telling stories for at least an hour! During the first stories, you could tell that the cards were new for the kids and they had to examine them before being able to construct a narrative — they were not combining them freely, did not establish connections between the characters or situations and were only discussing what they could see on a given picture. As a novice in the world of Christmas holidays, Annie initially could not complete a whole story… which changed very quickly in a matter of days. The start of Christmas preparations in the kindergarten also helped — every day the kids came back home with a new song, a sketch or a poem.
Over the next days the kids were very excited to create new stories — usually in the evening, just before bedtime. Storytelling is a really quick activity — it takes about ten minutes with four people — yet at the same time it’s full of emotions and requires attention and patience (the little designers are usually quite tired afterwards). This particular mission coincided with a period when we started having guests from near and afar, coming home for the holidays. Nobody could escape our Christmas storytelling — and nobody actually wanted to! The adults, at first astonished and even a little confused by the initial challenge (“you’ve got to create your own stories now, OK?”), ended up having a lot of fun. We also discovered unsuspected storytelling talents among some of our relatives.
We still continue to tell stories and rarely skip an evening. For me, this is the time of day when I immerse myself in a completely different world — a world we create ourselves. We bring the cards with us even when we visit family and friends. The kids, of course, have their own favourite cards and are very happy when they pick them out (we play the game with all cards facing down). Sonny upgrades the story and connects characters and storylines, whereas Annie repeats memorized storylines that have impressed her the most and describes everything in detail. And the stories become more colourful, lengthier and richer in all kinds of elements — dancing, singing mimics and gestures… So much fun!
Mission: Decorator — “Family Christmas Theme”
Right after the end of Mission: Storyteller, we continued with Mission: Decorator — “Family Christmas Theme”. I printed the diaries and showed them to the kids at home. They were ecstatic and we made the crowns right away! Choosing a single family theme for decorating our home when playing with two kids turned out to be a bit of a problem. Sonnie insisted on having ‘beach’ Christmas with sand and sea. Annie took the initiative in a different direction and started drawing Christmas trees, stars, reindeers and sleighs on her mood board. When she got to the snowmen, we reached a consensus. Our family Christmas theme was “Magical Winter Forest”. The back-and-forth discussions, the numerous ideas that eventually got rejected and replaced with new ones, the ability to defend your choice and/or reach mutual agreement are all important parts of the mission. We encourage our kids to engage in all of these and it happens quite naturally when you have two children or more.
During the “Choose” stage we planned on making three separate forest decoration pieces — one for each of the kids’ rooms and one for the living room. We selected animals and objects (with a limit to 10 per forest) and we started crafting during the weekend. It took us more than three hours to go through the whole thing. We printed animal stickers, laminated them, glued them on sticks, arranged the flower pots, added some more decoration and voila — we had spectacular magical forests. We worked in teams — rather than having one person to complete one forest, we distributed tasks to everyone in the family according to their skills. The kids were so tired that they could not present their final creations. Sonnie somehow made it happen, but it was impossible for Annie to focus again. Well, there is always tomorrow :)
Mission: Traveller — “Christmas around the world”
I left Mission: Traveller — “Christmas Around the World” as the grand finale of the whole bundle; I couldn’t wait to show the diaries to the kids! When we initially planned this particular mission, we had a completely different view on how it would be played, but right from the start we saw that it wouldn’t work (that’s the charm of design thinking — you can spot failure early on). Our end goal was to show and tell seven different stories about Santa Claus and various traditions and celebrations around the world. After all the hard work of finding, selecting and writing the stories, the mission was ready, set, go!
Sonny chose the travel itinerary and after some minor differences with Anniewe left them to decide and pick one final plan for the trip around the world. Their order of destinations was the following: Finland, The Netherlands, Singapore, Madagascar, Mexico, Hawaii/USA and Bulgaria. Every night the kids had a routine —we read the story, they discussed what impressed them the most, watched the selected videos for the mission and drew their impressions in the diaries. We did this in the course of seven days — on the eighth day the kids had to choose friends and relatives to send their own Christmas cards to. It was quite asurprise when each of them chose eight people and we had a total of 16 Christmas cards to craft!
Sonnie decided that each of his eight cards will be from a different destination in our itinerary. Annie was more practical and agreed that it is better to select one country for all her cards. She chose Finland with the Aurora Borealis as a main backhround feature. We spent another three hours of crafting, full of great sense of accomplishment, fatigue and candy bars for the whole team :) It was all worth it — the Christmas cards were amazing and all our relatives were pleasantly surprised and intrigued by the different destinations. I honestly had no idea how the cards will turn out and if the kids would follow through and craft all of them. They really set an example — once you take on a task you must finish it, and finish it well! As parents, we really can’t ask anymore of them.
With this three-mission Christmas Edition, we wanted to help kids and parents experience the holiday season through something really important — spending time together. We showed seven completely different ways in which people celebrate Christmas and how traditions vary around the globe (even Santa doesn’t always look the the same!) With Joulupukki and the straw goat in Finland, Sinterklaas and Black Peter in The Netherlands, Mr and Mrs Claus in USA and Grandfather Frost and his granddaughter Snow White — wherever you go there is something different to discover. We created dozens of unique Christmas stories with the storytelling cards (and we still continue to do so almost every evening.) We decorated our home with Christmas decorations chosen and created by us — there was room for (almost) all of the ideas in our magical winter forest.
At this time of the year, it was not important whether Santa Claus existed or not, but rather what story we chose to tell about the holiday and the atmosphere and family spirit we created at home. We managed to achive something really special with the missions. Moment by moment, one card after another, destination to destination — we all had the most lovely family holiday.
See you next Christmas!
Red Paper Plane is creating innovative learning programs with design thinking for kids
age 4–10 — ”Design Explorers” for the home and “Design Champions” for educational environments
