Sites keep kids busy awaiting Santa

Site-Seeing with Jan Perry

With time running short, here are some pages to occupy the wee ones (and the grown ones as well) while you finish baking, wrapping and resting up for the big day to come.

http://www.saint-nick.com. You'll find some interesting info at this site from Aristotle. Look at how Santa has changed through the ages, check out the 12 tastes of Christmas with recipes for serious sweets such as peanut butter balls and frozen peppermint cheesecake and read stories from other visitors about Christmas at their houses. You can even add one of your own.

http://www.santaworld.se/english/index.htm. For a fun stop in your Web travels, this site from Sweden features games to play, information about the Swedish home of Santa Claus and songs by both Santa and some of the trolls who work for him.

http://www.blackdog.net/holiday/christmas.This is a wonderful site for children of all ages. There are all kinds of games to play, traditional and interactive. Your child can create a personal Christmas story, then print it out to share with others. And while lots of sites have recipes for Christmas treats, this page also has one for magic reindeer food so you can keep Comet, Dasher and the rest well fed for their long journey.

http://www.christmasseals.org. A fun site with a serious message. The American Lung Association has joined the Internet age. You can send a Christmas seal, Hanukkah seal or a Kwanzaa Message to promote lung health. You can print out ''to and from'' cards featuring the 2000 seal as well.

http://www.happychristmas.com. This is an interesting site, filled with stories from visitors - but with a twist. Here you'll read about Christmas catastrophes (in and out of the kitchen), gift-giving disasters, what festive films are favorites this year and all kinds of mall mayhem during the shopping season. There's even a list of pizza places that are open Christmas day just in case you don't feel like cooking.

http://hometown.aol.com/SPJones97/index.htm. This is the home of the Cyber Nanny. The pages you'd normally find here have all been replaced with holiday games, pages to color and much much more. And just so you don't think about being bad to the nanny, one of the games is Battleship - and trust me, Nanny plays for keeps.

http://users.intercomm.com/greg/christmas. One page of this site was mentioned earlier in this column, but the entire collection deserves a mention. There is enough here to keep the whole family happy through the holidays.

A word of advice - click everywhere - you never know where Greg has hidden his holiday surprises.

Jan Perry is a freelance writer. Send questions or suggestions to her at SiteSeer2K@aol.com.