My wee Christmas Crackers!
We are CHRISTMAS people...well, to be more accurate, I am a CHRISTMAS person and the rest of my wee family have no choice but to join me in the festive fun that envelopes our daily life at this time of year. I just love getting the Christmas decorations up, having festive tunes playing in the house, putting Christmas movies on, doing Christmas crafts with the kids and having a bit of festive baking 'therapy' in the kitchen.
I am very lucky that my family are quite obliging and happy to join me in the fun although, Ian put a ban on Christmas movies until 1st November...harsh! So in protest, Heather, Evan and I started listening to Santa Songs (as H calls them) in the car since mid October!!
I've been totally addicted to Pinterest for weeks now (I prefer to call it "research") in my quest to find Christmas family fun things to do with the wee ones. Now that Heather is 3 and a 1/2 I thought she would be quite excited by all the things I've found. Evan is only 15 months but I'm sure he'll enjoy it all too.
I've found some really lovely things to do this festive season - some people are so creative!
The cool things/ websites I have found to date include:
- Christmassy food and crafts @ www.meetthedubiens.blogspot.com
- Polar Express Night @ www.confessionsofahomeschooler.com
- Reindeer food bar @ www.kellehampton.com
- Christmas to do list @ www.frogprincepaperie.com
- Christmas action cards @ www.oopseydaisyblog.com
- Salt dough style decorations @ www.woodsidekitchen.blogspot.com
- Santa pancakes @ www.tasetofhome.com
- Button shaped cookies found on Pinterest
We came up with a few bits and bobs on our own too.
We have also been to/ done a bunch of other Christmas/ Festive things in the last few weeks so here is a little bit about each.
Stenhousemuir Christmas lights switch on
At the start of December our little town/ village had its annual Christmas tree lights switch on. So we wrapped up warm (it was freeeeeezing) and headed out. The organisers had put on some entertainment and there was some light up toys etc for sale for the kids. The local church had a living Nativity too.
We were a little late getting to the town centre as Heather and Evan had both been sound asleep all afternoon (it had been a very busy morning as Heather had been at dancing class and then we had all been at my school for the annual Winter Fayre). The nativity was closed when we got there - apparently it had stayed open for an extra 2 hours - but we were lucky enough to say goodbye to the the donkeys, goats and sheep as they were packing up.
Wee Evan is just a set of eyes - he was wrapped up so cosy!
Me and my girl - she had her face painted at my School Winter Fayre
~ she is a pink pussy cat with a Rudolf nose.
Golf Club Christmas Party
For the last 3 years my Brother-in-law and I have been asked to run the Children's Christmas Party at the local Golf Club. I just LOVE doing it!!! Fun, singing, Christmas games and 34 happy wee faces - what's not to love? The children are aged between 4 and 7 but we managed to sneak Heather in this year. She didn't join in a lot of it but she said she had fun. Each year we have a candy cane hunt, play lots of of fun games and sing Christmas songs but this year we also had a Reindeer Food Bar where the kids had the chance to make their own reindeer dust. I got the idea from a website called www.kellehampton.com
We also had a special visit from a certain Mr Claus! Gordon and I have the kids singing Christmas songs as Santa makes his anticipated arrival. He arrives on a 2 person quad bike and travels up the fairway towards the clubhouse. Once one of the parents spots him coming the kids all jump up, run to the windows and go wild! I remember one year when I was little (I used to go to these parties too) Santa arrived on a big tractor and it was snowing...it was so magical! Heather wasn't very keen on Santa (ok, she was really scared) but eventually she calmed down enough to collect her parcel with Daddy. Just before Santa left, she went up and gave him the little bag of reindeer dust she had made - I could have cried, it was so beautiful.
Cardboard Christmas Tree
Ian came home a few weeks ago and said, "I bought some new glasses and a few Christmas decorations from Ikea at lunchtime". After parading back and forth with his purchases for around 40 minutes, it turns out that was the biggest understatement of the year!! It appeared he bought nearly all of Ikea's decorations!!!!!
One of his purchases, however, was a stroke of genius, it was a large 3D cardboard Christmas Tree for the kid's playroom! Their wee faces lit up when it appeared in the hall one evening. He had also bought some baubles, beads and candy canes to decorate it with. They LOVED it!!!
The cool thing is they can redecorate it as many times as they fancy. Hopefully it will last the holidays (it has been knocked over many, many times) and we can use it again next year.
The cool thing is they can redecorate it as many times as they fancy. Hopefully it will last the holidays (it has been knocked over many, many times) and we can use it again next year.
Heather had fun putting candy canes on the tree and swinging the beads around
Gifts for the neighbours
Since moving to our house a few years ago, we have given some home baked treats to our wonderful neighbours for Christmas. We've always tried to come up with something different each year.
I saw a picture a few weeks ago of a stack of cookies that looked like buttons threaded in a ribbon~ it was really pretty. So, this was our gift for this year. Ian and I made a huge batch of shortbread (we even got the Steel family recipe) and made them into buttons using a straw and 2 circle cutters. Once they were cooled I threaded them onto a ribbon and then put them into little bags.
before...
...after
Apparently, they went down well. We certainly demolished all the rejects...!
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