A New Age Letter From Santa

12 Days of Christmas Activities - Day 12 Get a personalised email from Santa

(Big Thanks to Amelise for this link)

I organised a personalised email video to be sent to the VIPs from Santa at the North Pole through "Portable North Pole".

They loved it! Definitely more exciting for their age than a snail mail letter from Santa.

I managed to take some webcam shots while they watched it...

Saltdough Handprint Ornament Fail

12 Days of Christmas Actvities - Day 11 Make saltdough Christmas ornaments better than I can!

Today my charming friend Belinda and her 3 munchkins came for a catch up pre Christmas and I thought it woiuld be a great opportunity to make saltdough Christmas decorations.

I knew a basic saltdough recipe and put it into action, rolled out disc, wrestled 6 little hands onto the discs and popped them in the oven.

However, I forgot to prick the damn things! So, they blow up like balloons.
So, for anyone that wants to have some success with saltdough decorations like these...

TRY HERE

Or you could try cutouts like this one...

TRY HERE

Belinda dear, I suggest you redo them lol!

Instead of a pic of my dismal attempt at saltdough, here is a pic of Belinda's cheeky 9mth old.

Down Time

12 Days of Christmas Activities - Day 10 Watch a Christmas movie

It is easy to be so damn busy at this time of year that you forget to just spend some down time with your VIPs.

The Nightmare Before Christmas is one of the VIPs favourites at the moment, probably because their Aunty Hayley can often be found wearing clothes depicting the main charcters.

But who am I to deny them a little Tim Burton craziness? Especially when I get lots of couch cuddles while watching it.

Gingerbread - The Smell of Christmas

12 Days of Christmas Activities - Day 9 Fill the house with the smell of gingerbread.

Whether you decide to make a lavish, pretty Gingerbread house like this one.

Image here

Or whether you attempt to make gingerbread men, (only to remember you still have no brown sugar, subtitute with white and then not melt it down enough so you get gingerbread men that look like they are multigrain!) Very tasty though lol

Or make something completely off the wall, like this gingerbread playdough!

Picture and recipe from the VERY talented Sugarbelle

It just ain't Christmas unless that spicy smells is drifting through the house.

Treats of the Season

12 Days of Christmas Activities - Day 8 Roll something in coconut

Every year, at Christmas, we make these delicious truffles.

This year the VIPs were old enough to help by rolling the worked truffles in coconut. (According to Eva that means squish it into the table and then shove it in your mouth - Have we noticed a trend yet with this girl?)

Please be aware of a few things while viewing this pics...

1. They are blurry because they were taken with my hands covered in sticky truffle mix

2. Mans has not turned into the half naked chef, he is actually wearing jocks. (TT partial success, but I'll post about that another day!)

3. I had help - Aunty Bry and Aunty Hayley were "Ball monitors" lol

Green and Red Christmas Cookies

12 Days of Christmas Activities - Day 7 Bake Cookies

Today we made these.

They are not as good as I usually make because I had to replace 1/4 cup of brown sugar with white sugar. I had already made promises of cooking them before I realised we were very low on brown sugar.

However, despite insisting they help, the VIPs contribution was picking the M&Ms out of the teaspoon of mixture I gave them for rolling and eating them. Then when no more mounds were forthcoming, they ate the dough.

All well, it's Christmas!

Christmas Stories

12 Days of Christmas Activities - Day 6 Read a Christmas Story

We read the Aussie 12 days of Christmas the other day and have since read many Christmas stories including The Night Before Christmas (one of my childhood favourites). Stories are important for young children to help them relate to situations, hence why they are an important part of the lead up to Christmas.

Please excuse the boobage and belly!

Multitasking Mummy + Free Stickers =

12 Days of Christmas Activities - Day 5 Christmas sticker craft.

The other day the boys and I were hanging out together. Eva was asleep and I was desperate for activity for them to do that was quiet, required little supervision from me but still something that we could do together.

When we went and visit Santa, the VIPs got given these nifty little colouring books and inside was a sheet of stickers consisting of a large Christmas tree, decorations, presents etc. "These are perfect," I thought. The boys sat at the kitchen table, while I studied and organised lists, and decorated their very own Christmas trees for a good 40mins.

See how each one shows off their very different personalities. I LOVE these pieces of artwork for that exact reason. Even though Linc ended up taking out his frustration and the imperfections by tearing the tree. It adds to the charm.

Now, you might not have a specifically designed sticker sheet sitting around but drawing a Christmas tree onto a piece of paper and providing your Little One with seasonal stickers (from any discount store) to decorate is the perfect, simple, indoor, low supervision, quiet activity for preschoolers!
You can;t go wrong.

All Alight

12 Days of Christmas Activities - Day 4 Drive around locally to check out the Christmas lights


I grew up with Christmas lights out the front of our house. It was just what you did. I remember as a child taking a trip to "Boulevard" in Ivanhoe to see the whole street light up. It was so exciting!

Needless to say I don't feel like it's Christmas unless I have some kind of festive illumination out the front of my house.

There is not much in our area as far as big displays go but we did find this one. Someone has put a lot of effort in!

If you live in VIC and want to check out your local light displays, try here.

Breakfast With Santa

12 Days of Christmas Activities - Day 3 Community Event


At Christmas time, my advice is to check out what events are being held through your local council or your local shopping centre. We stumbled across a gem out our local shopping centre. Breakfast with Santa.

It cost us $5 a child and they received breakfast of either pancakes and juice or a cheese and tomato toasty, hash brown and juice. (The VIPs had pancakes and I took a pop top half filled with water so I could water down the juice).

They also received a colouring book and crayons as a gift and there was free face painting and balloon artist.

 Santa and Rudolph came around and greeted all the children. They all had a really good time and for $5 you can't go wrong.

Tree Perfection

12 Days of Christmas Activities - Day 2 Decorate the Tree


Putting up the Christmas tree can be the most tedious part of Christmas. I always find it so frustrating trying to get the lights on just right. Getting the VIPs involved can help your mood but hinder your progress. But they definitely enjoy it and at the age they are at, this really helped them get into the excitement of "Cris-mas Time!!"

After last years repetitive attacks by the boys, the tree is definitely looking worse for wear. There are quite a few broken branches and pine needle less storks, so I think 2012 will see a new tree.

Here is the finished tree. I just have to tidy it up a bit!

Myer Christmas Windows 2011 - Santa Claus is coming to town

12 Days of Christmas Activites - Day 1 Visit the Myer Christmas Windows

Last Sunday the kids and I were feeling the cabin fever. I decided to take them in to the city for the Myer Christmas Windows. As an added extra, I thought we could catch the train in as Mans is train mad at the moment.

They were doing really well until the train had to stop in the middle of no where for an hour as there was an issue further up the line. They ended up having a couple of melt downs and I'm just happy I packed lunch and lots of snacks otherwise they would have been hungry, bored, toddlers and would have terrorised the whole carriage.

We got to the windows. This years theme is "Santa Claus is coming to Town". Big, beautifully coloured windows.

But Linc would not go near the windows. He was terrified and spent the whole time sitting on Baker Bob's shoulders.

  

We also went and browsed at the Myer Trim Shop and was very disappointed by this years Santaland. But the VIPs were wonderfully well behaved (beside the boring 1 hour wait on the train). It was a good day, and perfect for curing the cabin fever.