Dinosaurs to celebrate Christmas Saturday at museum

The Havre museum is putting a prehistoric slant on the season with a special child-oriented celebration Saturday.

"I think it's going to be a fun afternoon, " H. Earl Clack Museum Board Chair Judi Dritshulas said Monday during the board's monthly meeting.

A Dinosaur Christmas is set to run from 1 to 3 p. m. Saturday with most activities in the mall common area outside of the museum, near the inside entrance to Sears. Story reading will take place inside the museum.

Volunteers will staff four tables with separate events for the children. The one Dritshulas said she expects to receive the most interest will be a station where the children will make dinosaur sock puppets.

She said she and other volunteers are meeting Thursday to prepare the materials for that station.

"That will be the big one, the sock puppet, " Dritshulas said.

Another station will be set up for children to decorate dinosaur-shaped cookies with frosting and sprinkles. Gary & Leo's Fresh Foods is baking different-shaped and colored dinosaur cookies, and different colored frosting and decorations will be provided for decorating them.

"The kids will decorate the cookie and then eat it or take it home, " she said.

At another station, children will take dinosaur-shaped miniature statues and put a hanger around the neck of the dinosaur, then hang it on a Christmas tree put up at the event.

The final station outside will be a coloring table.

"That's a calming-down event, " Dritshulas said.

While the activities are going on outside the museum, two librarians from the Havre-Hill County Library will be reading dinosaur stories to the children inside the museum.

Dritshulas said she will want lots of help from volunteers to help clean up at the end of the event.

She said that, along with the volunteers from the library, she has received commitments from several others to help run the Dinosaur Christmas — from the board, students at Havre High School and others in the community.