Class Gift: Rudolf the Red-Nosed ROOT BEER

This is by far the most expensive class gift idea I'm sharing.  But even then, it isn't crazy, depending on the number of the kids in the group.

But  he is just so darn cute!

May I introduce, Rudolf, the Red-Nosed Root Beer!

Very much like the Candy Cane version, this is just a little hot glue, googly eyes, and pipe cleaners, (Oh, and I added a jingle-bell collar too) but instead of on a candy cane, you attach the pieces onto a bottle of root beer that you have already taken the label off of.

Still pretty quick.  We used Dad's Rootbeer, but Weinhard's would also be good - its' just a bit more pricey!

ClassGift: Lolli-Pop

This one was even cheaper per gift than the Rudolf Candy Canes!

For my daughter's grade-two class, we got a bunch of double-lolly brand lolli-pops, and made a simple gift tag that read, "Have a LOLLY-jolly Christmas!"

She thought the play on words was hilarious, and they were a hit with her class.

Oh - and they took about 20 minutes to do from start to finish for her whole class.  Bonus.

Class Gift: Candy Cane Reindeer

I know it has been forever. The fun hasn't stopped around here, and I have been taking pictures to share it all with you, but I just haven't made the next step of actually uploading, posting, and sharing.  

BUT - I had a couple of quick things I could show you, so I'm going with that.

This year's class Christmas gift for my five year old's kindergarten:

Rudolf Candy Canes!

Super cheap and fast!  I made 20 for about $2.50.  So don't let the fear of a big expense keep you from having your kids pass out a little treat to their classmates.

Easy to do: Start with a candy cane. Now, here you could  make it expensive if you went with the flavoured speciality candy canes, but I went with the classic mint that are super cheap.  Then all you do is hot glue a small red pompom and some little googly eyes.  The antlers are just brown pipe cleaners that I twisted around and bent into shapes.  You could probably reinforce them with a little glue, but mine were fine as is.

Finishing touch:  A little gift tag attached with some curly ribbon.

Ta-da!

Last year was my first time giving my kids something to pass out to all their classmates, and they loved it.  They felt so Christmasy and happy that they could give. And who doesn't want to teach their children to be happy by making other's happy?  It was awesome.

Christmas Marshmallow Pops

We signed up to bring treats to my kids' class Christmas parties and rather than make cookies, we did something different. (My boy was so happy that his weren't the same as everyone else's)

Since I seem to be obsessed with all forms of lolli-pop-like goodies at the moment, we made some Christmas marshmallow pops.

If you like making treats that are quick, easy, and a hit with kids, these are them. Very basic stuff. I know that it is now January, and you can't use this idea now, but it is easily adaptable to different holidays. All you have to do is switch up the sprinkles.

First, poke the sticks into the marshmallows, then roll about halfway in chocolate. Then dip in bowls of festive sprinkles. I had red and green trees, red, green and white micro dots, and snowflakes for our sprinkle options. If you make them in February, use heart sprinkles, March you can use green, April you can use pastels....see how versatile this is?

All dipped and ready to share. We made them the night before so that the would be set when we brought them, but they are yummy with warm, melty chocolate too.

Last thing you need to do is watch your children get silly with anticipation.

Class Gift - Grinch Pills

Can you read the poem off the picture? It says:

Feelin' kinda Grinchy?
Holiday spirit can't be found?
Then try these little "Grinch Pills"
They're the best medicine around!
Whether eating a whole handful,
Or munching one or two,
These tricky little "pills"
Take the "Grinch" right out of you!



The original idea I had found used green tic tacs and kept them in their packaging since they look so much like pills. It was so cute! But try as I might, I could not find green tic tacs ANYWHERE! I was let down, and so was my son who was looking forward to giving them away in school since he thought they were so funny. We looked for other ideas, but this was our favourite, so we tweaked it. I went to our local pharmacy and bought empty pill bottles, and then instead of tic tacs, inside each pill bottle are mini green jelly beans. (Dark green is watermelon flavour, and the light green is apple). Of course, around Christmas time, it is very easy to find green candies, so there are lots of other choices if you aren't a jelly bean fan. M&ms or holiday Smarties come to mind.

Here is the link for the tic tac version:

http://scrapcationgetaway.blogspot.com/2010/10/grinch-pills-free-scut-file.html

She has a pattern all ready for you to print out...if you can find the tic tacs!

Cake Pop Tip

A while back, I saw an idea for a really cute reindeer cake-pop. I loved it, and wrote it down to use in my activity advent calendar. This Saturday was the big day.

But when I went to get the instructions for how to make the actual cake ball part, everything I found seemed time consuming, and if you wanted it to work out right, you needed to buy special equipment, (pans, bakers etc). I was a little disheartened and almost moved on to something else.

Then I had a brilliant beyond brilliant idea.

Donut-holes. They are round, they are ready, and they are yummy.

So we shimmied off to Tim Horton's, bought a box of timbits, and came home to produce these fun little confections:

Granted, mine isn't as cute as the one I found online, but that is more a reflection on my own cake-pop decorating skills than the cake-within-the-pop. I totally recommend skipping the baking and using donut-holes.

Trust me, you'll thank me for this one.

Class Gift - Candy Cane Mice

I am having so much fun making little crafts for my children's classmates. Hooray for Christmas!

My kids like to look through my old Martha Stewart Kids magazines (I miss that magazine. It was awesome) and they some cute little felt mice and asked if we could make some. Of course we can! Here are the online instructions if you want to make some yourself. I altered mine a bit. I used pinking shears since I thought it would be cute, and used googly eyes and a pompom nose instead of little felt dots. Up to you for your own. another little add-on I did was to tie a matching ribbon around the tails, which was such an adorable final touch. It also served to attach the gift tags.

We bought some different flavoured candy canes at Walmart, (my kids don't really like the traditional mint kind) and then bought felt that matched them.

These treats are gingerbread flavoured. I found squares of felt in two tones of brown, and a dark red, and used those to make my critters. The dark brown mice are my favourites. SO cute.

These candy canes are watermelon, and cherry candy flavours. For watermelon I used green and pink felt, and the cherry are in white and pink. My boy has decided that these ones must be for the girls in his class.

Anyway, they were a snap to make, and didn't take any sewing. Just a little white glue. I did the cutting and assembling, and my son was the official gluer for the eyes and noses.

Gotta love a craft where you can crank out enough for all the kids in the class in a couple of hours.

Class Gift - Letter J Candy Canes

This is another idea for a group gift if you need to give something small to a larger number of kids. It is also a more religious idea, so I used it for the kids in my church group.

I found the poem here, and then made these:

I put each line of the poem in a different font to create a little visual interest, and I liked how that turned out. I also happened to have some candy cane striped wrapping paper at home, so I added a bit of that too.

Again, sideways.

I ran out of materials with one left to go, and I made this up from the scraps. Funnily enough, I actually liked this way better. Now I know, I guess.

Flannel Board Tree

This is so great, and so easy! My two-year-old is pretty good about leaving the ornaments on our family tree, but it is a bit of a temptation for him.

Solution? Give him his own tree!

To make a flannel board Christmas tree, all you need is felt and fabric scissors. NO SEWING!, and almost no time to make, either! Just cut out a basic green tree, and then some simple ornaments from different colours. Easy-peesy!

I set this up for him while he was napping today, and when he woke up, he was so excited. It may as well have been Christmas morning.

He picked off ornaments, and switched them around, and held them up for me to see for half and hour straight. It was so great. And it was an unexpected way for him to review his colours too. He kept choosing an ornament and asking me, "purple?" "green?" and I'd tell him which colour he was holding. It was so fun and so cute.

Class Gift - Reindeer Noses

I realize that this is a crazy year to add to my to-do list, with the baby due in two weeks, but I have found some cute little Christmas ideas that I really wanted to make. This one is called Reindeer Noses, and I decided to make them for my daughter's grade one class.

This was a pretty quick and easy project. There are eight chocolate balls for the eight regular reindeer, and one red gumball for Rudolph. Seriously, how cute is that?

I put them all into a medium cellophane bag, folded down the top, and stapled it in place. Then for the labels, I went to the scrapbook store and bought some red Christmas paper, and some light brown card stock. I went on line and got a little picture of Rudolph, and in about an hour I had 20 adorable little bag toppers.

Ta-da! My daughter loves them and is so excited to pass them out on her last day of class before the holiday break.

Christmas Advent Calendars - Part Four

This is the last one I'll post - I promise. If you don't have the same love of advent calendars as I do, I'm sure the last several posts have been very boring for you!

This one is a Craft Advent Calendar.

In previous years, I've done one where you have a Santa face and on each day leading up to Christmas you glue another cotton ball onto his beard, and one where you make a simple ornament each day to hang on the tree. Both were fun and worth trying.

But this year I saw this idea on Pinterest, and thought it was great. She had made a small Santa face with the numbers 1-24 on his beard, and on each day you got to snip a bit of his beard away.

I kept the same concept, but changed the design a little.

I changed my Santa face from being very geometric (triangle hat, rosy circles on his cheeks, and a round red nose) to being a bit softer. Also, instead of having the #1 at the bottom and having the children snip the numbers according to the date, I had #24 at the bottom, and then it acts as a count-down where they know exactly how many days are left until Christmas by just reading the last number, rather than figuring out the math. And finally, instead of making a smallish one for each of my kids, I opted to make one large one to hang on a door in our home. It is big. The fill length of a sheet of poster board. Then it doubles as a decoration, you see.

Here is a close up of his face. Pretty cute, eh? I'm not an artist by any means, but I was happy with how this guy turned out. My plan is to have the kids snip away at the number strips this December, and then when Christmas is over, I'll take the face part in to be laminated, and next year I'll just make a new beard and attach it to the base with some sticky Velcro dots and we can do this over and over.

Christmas Advent Calendars - Part Three

We are a religious family, so I like to take some time out of the playful, exciting parts of Christmas, and focus on the birth of Jesus Christ. We have two advent calendars that we do to help us with that.

(sorry about the sideways photo. Wish I could fix it)

This first one is called Scripture Ornaments, and you can download and make your own here. It is a good one for younger children since the ornaments are shaped differently, and you put them on the tree based on finding their matching shape, rather than by finding an answer to a question. There are questions with each one, and you do look up a scripture to find the answer, (ie, Why didn't Mary and Joseph stay in the inn, Luke 2:7) but to hang the decoration, you don't have to get an answer right.

The other is for middle-aged children. Like the first one, it involves looking up a scripture about the birth of Christ and finding the matching picture, but these ones are much more specific, and some pictures are very similar. The kids need to be able to read the summary beneath each picture to find out the right picture. Still really great though and we certainly wouldn't stop doing it because it is more challenging.

Christmas Advent Calendars - Part Two

The Family Christmas Activity Calendar.

This is my favourite advent calendar we do, and it is a little different every year. (I should also mention that it is an idea I lifted off my brilliant sister. Ahh, the advantages of having siblings!)

Essentially, you do something with your family every day, which is why it is my favourite.

Last year I finally found a wooden advent calendar with hinged doors for days 1-24, (I'd been searching for just the right one for ages) and so I write the activity for each day and put it in the spaces. But before that, I would use fun little envelopes and write the numbers 1-24 on the front and the kids would open a new envelope every day. I have also seen a cute set up of using Christmasy baby socks on a string to make a garland, and each little sock has the day's activity written down inside of it. Whatever delivery system you want to use is great. So, each day the kids take a turn getting the slip of paper and we read it together and then do the activity.

We have had lots of fun with it in past years. I try to make sure we have some games, some crafts, some baking, and some service all mashed into those weeks before Christmas comes. There are big projects (like making and decorating a gingerbread house) and small, relaxed ones, (like watching a Christmas movie together), which keeps things varied and helps on days when you have a lot or a little bit of time available.

In past years, we have:

Made salt dough reindeer...

Gone tobogganing...

Made detergent snowmen...

Baked lots and lots and lots of cookies....

Played in the snow...

And decorated the tree.

This year, since I am due with our fifth baby in the middle of the month, I tried to do the 'bigger' projects at the start of the month, and work my way into some lighter, easier to do, activities for the later half of the month, since I assume I'll be somewhat busier.

Here is this year's line up:

December 1: Write letter to Santa

December 2: make and decorate gingerbread house

December 3: Kid Christmas Party

December 4: Sugar Cookies

December 5: Go caroling and deliver goodies to neighbours

December 6: Make pom-pom ornaments

December 7: Decorate wooden nut crackers

December 8: Jelly-bean Santa game

December 9: Make paper snowflakes

December 10: Make Rudolph cake pops

December 11: Bake gingerbread men

December 12: Chocolate lollipops

December 13: Paint the Christmas tree puzzle, then assemble it

December 14: Make lamingtons

December 15: School Christmas concert

December 16: Church Christmas Party

December 17: Watch Christmas movie

December 18: Make Christmas crayons

December 19: Play Pass-the-Parcel

December 20: Watch out, Rudolph!

December 21: Paint ornaments

December 22: Pipe cleaner craft

December 23: Go tobogganing

December 24: Watch Nativity Pageant

Looks like it is shaping up to be a fun December!

Christmas Advent Calendars - Part One

I really, really love Christmas. And I love the time leading up to it all December long. One thing I have always enjoyed doing, as a child and as a mom, is having an advent calendar to help me count down the days until Christmas morning finally arrives.

I have done lots of things over the years, and now have a few favourite advent calendar traditions. Yes, I said traditions with an 's.' We have several advent calendars going during the month. So I thought I'd take a post or two (or three or four) to show you our advent calendars and then if you see something you like, there will be time for you to put it together before December starts.

This first one is a storybook advent calendar. Every December evening when I tuck the kids in bed, I like to read them a different Christmas story. Some I have fallen in love with, have purchased, and make sure we do every year. Others are just whatever I have found at our local library. These are usually the ones that are character based, like Fancy Nancy or Franklin. They aren't my favorites, but my kids really enjoy them, and since that is the whole point, I go along with it. When setting out the order, I try to mix up classics with new stuff. A few based on songs they love, a few that teach a nice Christmasy lesson, and some that are just silly and fun. I like to have things jumbled up together.

Here is what our line up looks like this year:

December 1st: The Polar Express by Chris Van Allsburg.

-I have always loved this book. It was the first Christmas story book I ever purchased, and I didn't even have kids yet.

December 2nd: A Porcupine in a Pine Tree; A Canadian Twelve Days of Christmas

-My brother passed this on to me last year, saying he thought I'd like it. He was right. It is delightful.

December 3rd: Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer by Robert May

-Who doesn't love this holiday classic?

December 4th: Franklin's Christmas Gift by Paulette Bourgeois

-Cute enough. Not something I'm going to order off amazon though.

December 5th: We Three Kings by Gennady Spirin

-The text is the words to the carol, and the illustrations are amazing. Beautiful!

December 6th: Bear Stays Up for Christmas, by Karma Wilson.

- A cute story about Bear. My littler ones love it.

December 7th: The Steadfast Tin Soldier by Fred Marcellino

-Sad story, really. But very beautiful to look at as you read.

December 8th: Room for a Little One, by Martin Waddell.

-Takes place in the stable where Mary and Joseph rest. A nice, gentle story.

December 9th: A Wish to be a Christmas Tree, by Colleen Monroe

-I wish it wasn't done in rhyme, but other than that I really like this one. December 10th: Clifford's Christmas, by Norman Bridwell.

-Not a real fan of it, but my kids were given it several years ago from a friend and they just love it, so what else can I do?

December 11th: The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey, by Susan Wojciechowski

-Has a positive message about the spirit of the season and its ability to change you.

December 12th: The Twelve Days of Christmas, by Don Daily

-Fun illustrations of animals acting out the action on each day.

December 13th: Frosty the Snowman by Richard Cowdrey

-Original lyrics to the classic song, with sweet illustrations.

December 14th: Fancy Nancy and the Splendiferous Christmas

- Because I love my six-year-old daughter.

December 15th: A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens

-We read a short, abbreviated version every year, but I think that my big kids might be old enough to read a chapter a night with me. We'll see....

December 16th: The Wild Christmas Reindeer, by Jan Brett

-I am a sucker for almost anything Jan Brett.

Decmeber 17th: Christmas Cookies: Bite Size Holiday Lessons, by Amy Krouse Rosenthal

-Completely wonderful. Charming.

December 18th: Its Christmas David, by David Shannon

-Because I love my eight-year-old son.

December 19th: A Christmas Dress for Ellen, by Thomas S Monson

-A warm your heart and make you tear up story.

December 20th: Good King Wencelas, by J.M Neale

-The text is the classic song, the illustrations are hauntingly beautiful.

December 21st: How the Grinch Stole Christmas, by Dr. Seuss

-A must.

December 22nd: The Gift of the Magi, by O. Henry

-Christmas means giving something up to make someone else happy.

December 23rd: Merry Christmas Mom and Dad by Mercer Mayer

-Kind of the same situation as the Clifford's Christmas book. Nothing really wrong with it, just not my thing.

December 24th: Twas the Night Before Christmas, illustrated by Matt Taveres

-Have to read a version of this on Christmas Eve, right? I like this edition for it's black and white pencil drawings. Amazing.

So that is my plan for the countdown this year. Obviously, there are more stories out there that are great, and we'll read some of them too, I'm sure. But these are the ones that I am specifically saving for the advent calendar.

Can't wait!