Tag: Christmas

Shining-Bright Advent Wreath

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One of my favorite holiday traditions as a girl was lighting the advent wreath, a new candle each week of December leading up until Christmas,. But I had forgotten all about it until I spotted this craft in Travis’s Highlights magazine. So we were eager to continue the tradition and light up our home!

Cut two empty paper towel tubes in half, so that now you have four “candles”. Wrap three of them in purple cardstock, and one in pink cardstock. Secure with tape.

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Wrap a length of similar colored ribbon around the top and secure with tape. (Note: The tape was Highlight’s suggestion, but for more elegance I would secure the ribbon and cardstock with glue next time).

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Cut a wreath shape from green cardstock, and glue down onto cardboard for extra stability. Glue on the pillars, and add decorations.

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We included green leaves cut from more cardstock as well as a few tiny red bells. Originally I planned to use small red pom poms as the “berries”, but the bells turned out to be lovely!

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For the candle flames, wrap tea lights in several layers of white felt (otherwise they will be too small and will slip inside the tubes).

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Place on top of the pillars. Each Sunday, a new candle is lit, and the pink one will join in on Christmas Eve!

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How are you counting down to Christmas? Please share in the comments!

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Fortune Cookie Gifts

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Travis and I hope to prepare several homemade Christmas gifts this year. This easy twist on fortune cookies is sure to bring a smile to the recipient’s face! It’s what Travis will be gifting to his bus driver this year as well as to a few special neighbors.

You can order fortune cookies online through Amazon, although many packages come in huge bulk quantities. I found one retailer with a more moderate quantity of 50, which was the perfect amount.

To decorate the cookies, heat 6 ounces unsweetened baking chocolate in the microwave at 30 second intervals, until melted.

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Working with one cookie at a time, dip half of it in the melted chocolate, then roll in sprinkles for decoration. White ones made a beautiful contrast to the dark chocolate!

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Transfer to a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and let stand until the chocolate is completely set.

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Travis loved cracking open a few extra cookies to read fortunes as we worked!

To package these, I purchased Christmas-themed takeout containers at the craft store.

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As an alternative, look for clear takeout containers and decorate with holiday stickers. Line each container with wax paper and nestle in about 7 to 8 fortune cookies.

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Add gift tags as a finishing touch!

Brighten Dark Winter Nights

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We are loving winter so far, with snow to play in and forts to build. The key, I have learned, to loving this darkest season is to keep things cozy. Here are four fun ways we’ve found to brighten the nights that begin as early as 4 p.m.!

First, we had an extra string of Christmas tree lights, and I gave Travis permission to hang them in his room.

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He loved that these had the option for flashing or steady modes, and he could control it with a button.

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Next, we made glow-in-the-dark paintings. Your kids can be deliberate or artsy with this activity…

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…Or just blob on the paint, as Travis did. He wanted maximum glow!

Brighten Nights (9)Next, we made a campfire. We scribbled brown marker on paper, rolled the paper up, and taped shut for quick “logs”.

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All our battery-powered tea lights in the house provided the perfect glow for reading Christmas stories and singing carols. A winter camp out!

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While we were at the “campfire”, we made sure to act out stories with shadow puppets, too.

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In sum, we’re staying cozy and happy, and excited for dark nights to come.

Create Holiday Cards

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This holiday season, I’m trying to help Travis understand the meaning of charity a little more deeply. It’s never too early to model charitable giving, especially around the holidays, but you also don’t want to alarm young children with issues like illness and poverty.

One action that’s just right for kindergarten age kids is to spread holiday cheer through cards. Cards for Hospitalized Kids accepts letters all year long, but you can easily tailor it with a holiday message in December.

Travis has a cold right now, which helped him sympathize; he was alarmed to learn that some children have illnesses that last much longer than a cold, and need to live in a hospital. He was immediately excited to make a card for these boys and girls.

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Following the organization’s guidelines, we designed a card and Travis wrote his own Merry Christmas message. We thought happy face stickers were just right for adding a bit of cheer.

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We added just a touch of glitter. When I asked him if he wanted me to draw a Christmas tree on the inside, he insisted on drawing it himself!

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I was proud of the generosity that went into this one project. More to follow as the lead-up to Christmas continues!

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Santa’s Sleigh Automaton

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I originally purchased this special holiday crate from Kiwi Co thinking it would be fun to put together with Travis. It turns out that it was so complicated even mommy had trouble with it! But we now have a very cool decoration to last until the holiday is over.

The sleigh works as an automaton, a machine that is pushed into motion, and the instruction booklet included neat STEM learning about other examples of automatons (think jack-in-the-boxes or vending machines), and also a detailed explanation at the end about how you’ve built a “cam”. Here’s a rough outline of what we did:

First we made a frame, slotting together the provided wooden pieces and foam stickers to help hold them in place.

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We then needed to build the crank part of our cam by attaching wooden circles to a crank in the proper order.

Next up was the part of the cam that would go up and down. This required fitting plastic rods into the wood stand, securing them onto a paper square at the base, and adding a paper straw and foam donut to hold them in place. Here is where the machine seemed a bit faulty, with the paper squares not staying firmly on the wheels of the crank. Hmmm…

But we forged on, adding the felt reindeer, Santa and sleigh (quite tiny!) to each of the plastic rods. Secure them all with the provided string for a leash.

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There is a decorated backdrop with felt houses and trees to attach. Now Santa’s sleigh and team are ready to fly!

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Travis does indeed enjoy turning the crank, so there is holiday magic (and science!) to be had in the final product.

 

Christmas Candy Jar

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The Christmas countdown has begun! Delight your family with this quick candy jar; guaranteed they’ll be nibbling from it all holiday season.

I hot-glued a black ribbon (meant to mimic Santa’s belt) around a mason jar. I added a pretty snowflake decal in the center, but if you want it to look even more like Santa, use a gold buckle!

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Now fill the jar with red or green candies. Red licorice were a dark, Holly berry-colored option.

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I plan to find brighter red candies later in the month so it looks like Santa’s big coat! But meanwhile there were no complaints from my happy nibblers.

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Write a Letter to Santa

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Christmas is 25 days away, and if you want to start the holiday off on a magical note for your kids, consider having them write to Santa!

Travis and I sat down with paper and markers (in red and green of course), and talked through his list.

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I helped him sound out and spell each item, which was great handwriting practice, too.

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His list included current favorites like Star Wars figures (Boba Fett, Kylo Ren) and a winter vest.

To make the letter truly special requires a little parental trickery. Write back a letter from Santa in response to your child. I used markers to disguise my handwriting.

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Now seal both letters in an envelope addressed to your child, and mark the return address as “Santa, The North Pole.” Don’t forget a stamp! Place this inside a larger envelope, addressed to the following:

NORTH POLE POSTMARK
POSTMASTER
4141 POSTMARK DR
ANCHORAGE AK 99530-9998

In return, you’ll receive a true North Pole postmark on the return letter from “Santa”. USPS recommends mailing by December 7. So make those lists and check them twice!

Magic Reindeer Food

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It’s Christmas Eve! Reindeer might like carrots, but you can also try this magical mix to guide Rudolph and his team right to your home. Kids will love the sparkle and magic of the project.

Travis and I set out two bowls, and added 1/2 cup sugar to each.

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In one, we added drops of red food coloring, and we turned the other green.

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Stir in 1/2 cup oats to each bowl. Look at that sparkle!

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Your kid can taste the reindeer food if they want to, although Travis declined! It’s not that this version is perfectly edible, as opposed to using glitter, since any animals who nibble won’t be harmed.

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Pour the reindeer food into jars, and add a holiday ribbon for a nice touch.

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If you want to share the fun with friends or cousins, put some of the mix in a zip-top bag, along with instructions. We printed out this little rhyme:

Sprinkle this reindeer food outside tonight

The moonlight will make it sparkle bright

As the reindeer fly and roam

This will guide them to your home

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Before bed, we sprinkled some on our lawn. Travis loved shaking out big handfuls of it!

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Now we wait for St. Nick!

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Host a Cookie Swap

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Travis doesn’t know it yet, but he’s about to receive a subscription to Raddish Kids as a gift this holiday season. Having gotten a sneak peak, I’m already impressed with the company. A suggested further activity from his upcoming December package was a holiday cookie swap. I instantly knew I wanted to make this happen, but it had to be quickly, even before he opens up his first box on Christmas morning. Could we pull off a cookie swap in just a few days? Yes!

First, we decided on a date for the party, then downloaded the invitation template and sent off to a few buddies. Come to Travis’s cookie party!

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The day of the party, we set our computer to play holiday tunes…

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…and added festive decorations around a cookie table, including garlands, pinecones, and various crafts we’ve made this holiday season.

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We offered 4 kinds of cookies to our guests:

Classic Thumbprints

Peppermint Chocolate Brownie Cookies

Caramel Cracker Bark

and Snowball Cookies

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Now it was time for guests to arrive, each bearing their own plate of cookies!

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I recommend keeping things manageable – 3 to 8 friends, depending on your child’s age and the size of your home. Older kids may want to do an organized tasting, sitting down and rating each cookie. Little kids just loved running around and occasionally stopping to chomp a cookie! Meanwhile grown ups got to sit around, enjoy sweet treats, and chat.

As a couple of extras, we also added gingerbread men ice cubes to fruit punch for the kids, and I provided gift bags for everyone to take home the cookies they wanted.

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This was an absolutely perfect afternoon – I’m so thankful to Raddish for a suggestion I’d never have come up with otherwise, and can’t wait to see what Travis receives in his official first December kit. You can be sure there will be a blog post about it!

 

Picture Frame Winter Scene

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Here’s one of those crafts that didn’t exactly turned out as I imagined! My little artist had his own plans, but the whole point was the fun and the crafting moment together, not perfection.

To start, you’ll need a simple frame (you can find these cheap at a craft store, measuring about 5×7 inches). Travis loves the mechanics of removing the back off a frame, so was delighted to discover our project enabled him to do so.

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Cut a piece of leftover holiday wrapping paper to fit the glass of the frame, and insert.

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I set out acrylic paints and invited Travis to draw any winter-themed scene that would fit nicely with our Christmas tree background. He chose white for snow, and I encouraged him to paint a snowman, thinking of how the body is made up of various circles.

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Travis had his own plans, making a big snowy blanket of white. “It’s covering the trees,” he insisted.

 

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Luckily at this point I snapped a pic, because he soon decided he needed to “snow” over the trees completely with white paint. I laughed but didn’t tell him this rather negated the point of having wrapping paper inside the frame.

He then wanted to mix other colors over his white. “I’m an artist!” he declared, doing swirls of paint.

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Well, we didn’t end up with a winter scene, but we did end up with a good time!

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I encourage you to have fun with these, though. Your children could paint something quite beautiful in front of the wrapping paper background, whether snowmen or ornaments or anything else that fits the season. I’d love to hear what they come up with in the comments!