Friday, December 24, 2010

Letters To Santa And The Christmas Count Down

Each year my kids and I spend time together writing letters to Santa and making a calendar to count down until Christmas day. We’ve always enjoyed writing Santa letters and we have been creating the Christmas Count Down Calendars for the past four or five years.

We write our calendar on a large white poster board. Around the edges we make a frame in ribbon and glitter. The dividing lines on the calendar are made of Christmas candy sprinkles.

We mark special days during the holidays on the calendar. Every year we mark a day for writing letters to Santa. We make a mini envelope to glue to that day’s place on the calendar. On the envelope my daughter likes to draw a picture of snowmen. She fills in the space around the envelope with red glitter.

The day after letter writing is our mail your Christmas letters day. For this day we place a couple of stamps on the poster board. This year this drew up a clever little map of the trip from our house to the North Pole.

We mark a day for wrapping all the gifts we will be delivering to friends and family. On this day we put a stick on gift tag. Another event we mark is filling and sending out our Christmas cards.

We also mark a day for mixing up our magical reindeer food. That day is covered in gold glitter with a reindeer picture glued on top. This is one of kid’s favorite activities that we do for Christmas.

We have a day for baking cookies together. On the square for this day we glue on sprinkles and mini gingerbread men. We make the gingerbread men out of thin craft foam.

The day that we put up the Christmas lights has a green Christmas light bulb stuck to it. The light bulbs are made of candy cellophane. One year we glued on the lights from a burnt out string we was going to throw away.

We always mark the special day when the letters from Santa arrive. How this day gets noted varies from year to year. Last year we used a gold stick on star.

Of course Christmas Eve is marked with a picture of the real Santa. Christmas is marked with a big shiny present to represent a gift from Santa Claus. You could use any Christmas image that you have around.

To mark off a day we glue cotton balls over it. You can glue whatever you have around the house maybe strips of ribbon or tissue paper to mark off your days. I have the kids rotate turns to be the one to get to mark of a day.

My kids love making this calendar. It gives us a chance to spend time together doing something that we all enjoy doing. As we make the calendar we talk about past Christmas memories and their hopes for this Christmas. Every year we added other holiday events like school plays and holiday parties we will attend. I hope you have fun making this calendar with your children.

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Monday, December 20, 2010

Letters To Santa & Christmas Ball Ornaments Crafts

Santa letters are a traditional Christmas activity. Writing these letters to Santa provides time for family fun and bonding. It’s a great way to spend time together during the holidays. Many families have found that craft projects are ideal for family time. A simple way to get started in Christmas crafts is with ball ornaments. Ball ornaments can be used to make several different ornaments. These crafts are inexpensive and great for parties or classroom projects.

One of the easiest ways to decorate ball ornaments is to use a permanent mark to draw designs or your name and the year. Permanent markers come in wide variety of colors. Silver, gold, and copper markers look spectacular on solid colored balls. The possibilities are as endless as your imagination.

You can make a cute Santa with cotton balls. Start of with a plain white ornament. Take two cotton balls and fluff them out with your hands. You may want to use an egg carton to hold your ornament in place while you work on it .Next put a line of glue on the top of the ornament. Place one of the cotton balls on the line of glue. Do the same along the bottom of the ornament. Next you will need to use paint or markers to make the face. Lastly make a hat out of construction paper the ball on the end can made from a small piece of cotton ball. These ornaments are almost as cute as the real Santa.

Using a marker you can write a letter to Santa around the ornament. I do this every year with my kids we have fun reading the ornaments we had made years ago. You may need to help younger child because you have to write pretty small. On the back I have the children write the year and there age. This way we know when each Santa letter was made.

For a baby’s first Christmas I used a pastel ball to record their birthday. For boys I use a pale blue ball and a silver marker. For girls I used pink and gold glitter. If you wanted you could include the birth weight and length

The outside isn’t the only part of these versatile ornaments that can be decorated. The inside can be filled with a number of things. The reindeer food ornament is fun to make. Take a clear ball and remove the top. Now take enough reindeer food to fill it half way. Put the top back on. With the color of your choice write magical reindeer food on the front and back. You fill the ornaments with glitter or crushed peppermint for a different look.

The inside of a ball ornament can be painted in swirls. All you need to do is pour a couple different colors of paint in the ball. Next slowly roll the ornament to achieve the effect you want. Be careful not to use too much paint. You can also glue small jewels or pieces of ribbon on the outside of the ornament.

Besides letters from Santa, the special ball ornaments will probably be your most treasured Christmas mementos. They will mark special years and remind you of cherished times you spent with family members creating the beautiful ornaments.

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Thursday, December 16, 2010

Do Your Santa Letters Include Romantic Christmas Ideas

Have you ever written letters to Santa asking for a new love to walk into your life or just for ways to refresh the spark you once had with your significant other? The Christmas season is the perfect time to put a little romance in your life. There are lots of ways to show your love for each other without buying a thing. I have included some idea to be to get on your sweethearts nice list.

Wisk the one you love off on a Christmas vacation. There are many options you could choose from. If you are want a place that will get the chill of winter out of your skin, The Caribbean offers many all inclusive resorts just for couples. Another option is to rent a cabin in the Smokey Mountains and surround yourselves in the beauty of the winter landscape.

Write a Christmas Santa letter expressing how much you value the relationship that the two of you have together. A real romantic idea is to send a card every of December until Christmas day. You could take it one step farther and give a small gift to go a long with the card. It can be something small like a candle or box of chocolate. This will make your beloved fell so special this holiday season.

With some much do and such little time to do you might just want a night to relax together. Pick up dinner from one of your favorite restaurants. Go home turn off the phones and ignore the world for a night. Love Actually and The Family Stone are some great Christmas movies for a romantic movie night. Have a dessert that the both of you love. Hot cocoa is nice to snuggle up with on a cold winter night.

Take a long hot candle lit bath together. You could add some bubble bath or flower petals to the water for a romantic touch. After you bath take turns giving message using a holiday scented lotion. A special treat a man could give a woman is to wash her hair for her.

Share holiday tradition with each other. Participate in the traditions their family has it will bring you closer to your significant other. Start a tradition of your own it could be anything like making reindeer food together or writing letters to Santa. If this is your first Christmas buy a special ornament to mark the occasion. Every year you could write letters from Santa to give to each other. These letters could talk about what was special about the year.

Make plans to have a nice night alone. Sometimes in the rush of the holidays you can start to feel disconnect from the one you love. If check your local newspaper you may find holiday events that will appeal to both of you. If there is snow on the ground, go for a walk in a park. You may just want stay home and eat a dinner by the glow of your Christmas tree.

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Sunday, December 12, 2010

Santa Letters, Gifts, And Christmas Day Fun & Relaxation

The build up to Christmas can seem chaotic. At my house we do everything from writing Santa letters to shopping, decorating, entertaining and more. I guess that’s a big part of why we prefer to stay at home and enjoy each others company Christmas day. We lounge around the house all day in our new Christmas pajamas. My husband and I feel that it is unfair to drag the kids out of the house when all they want to do is stay home to play with their new gifts.

First thing in the morning the kids run down to open a package from Santa. The air in the living room quickly becomes filled with bits of ribbons and wrapping paper. They open one gift and return to the tree to find another a package with their name on it. Drew and I take as many pictures as we can. It is important to us to have visual record of our Christmases together.

After we have opened all of our gifts we cook breakfast together. Some years we make something easy like cinnamon rolls or pancakes and other years we go all out and create a gourmet style breakfast. While breakfast is cooking my boys bring in the empty reindeer food bowl. They show everyone that the reindeer ate all of the food we put out. We sit down together at the table and have a nice breakfast. The kids can’t finish their meal fast enough. They are so excited about the things they received from Santa.

Once we have the kitchen cleaned up after breakfast the kids run off to play with their new toys. While they are entertained my husband Drew and I start to cook our Christmas dinner. We both love to cook and we usually get something new for the kitchen. Now and then one of the kids will pop in and help out for a bit. My youngest daughter will almost always come in and write thank you letters to Santa while we cook. She thanks Santa for everything that was under the tree, fully believing that he is responsible for all the gifts. She will have her letters from Santa as references as she writes. She’s not one that can be argued with and we certainly would not want to. We actually want our children to believe in Santa for as long as possible.

Drew and I set the table with our special Christmas dishes. When we sit down to eat each kid gets a turn to tell us what their favorite gift was.

Once we have put away dinner, we veg out and watch a few movies. Drew always remembers to buy the movies for Christmas day. One by one the kids drift off to their beds. Christmas is always such a tiring day for them all.

Once the last kid has wondered off to bed and it is just me and Drew. We sit by the lights of the Christmas and enjoy the stillness of the night. Each Christmas night we have a champagne toast for surviving another Christmas. This is when Drew and I exchange our special gifts. This is perhaps my most cherished tradition. It may sound silly but Christmas may be the most romantic night we have throughout the whole year. We reflect on our love for each other, our love for the kids, and how important their happiness is to us.


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Wednesday, December 8, 2010

My Letters To Santa Were Answered

Yes, I really did, when I sat down with my grandkids to write letters to Santa Claus I asked him to bring my son Johnny home safely to me. All I wanted for Christmas was to see my son. It was his first year away at college. I was going crazy having him hundreds of miles away from me. Before this he had never spent more than a couple nights a time away from home. His Christmas vacation couldn’t start soon enough for me. I know, call me a mother hen or whatever – I just call it a mother’s love!

The whole family came over the day Johnny arrived home. I gave him maybe fifty hugs the first hour he was home. We all had questions for him. I was proud of the man he was beginning to be. It was a very happy day for us all.

We all sat down and had a lovely dinner together. I noticed that he had lost a little weight while he was away.

After dinner we spent hours just talking about how he was doing in school. He told us all about his roommate Joe. Joe we learned had numerous tattoos and piercings, hearing that made me a little bit nervous. He went on about his professors and all of the interesting people he has met. Johnny admitted that while he was having fun at college he still missed the whole family and home cooked meals.

Johnny’s brothers and sisters came in to kidnap him. They wanted him to help them write Santa letters. As he helped the younger kids I realized how mature he had become. It was so nice to have him home. His siblings had really missed him. They spent a long time at the table that day just talking and catching each other up on things. I’m glad that my children have great relationships between them.

Over the next few days we all spent as much time with Johnny as we could. I was happy when he no longer was annoyed when his younger brothers pestered him to play army. He even took over the job of mixing up the reindeer food. He told his brothers and sisters that when they went away to college he would teach them Santa’s magical reindeer food recipe.

I was amazed that he volunteered to help clean up around the house. He even motivated his siblings to pitch in and help. It was sweet the way that he made time to spend alone with each of his brothers and sisters. He was the camera man the day the letters from Santa came for his brothers and sisters. But on Christmas Eve Johnny was just as excited as all of the other kids. You could tell that he couldn’t wait to find a gift from Santa under the tree for him.

After everyone was asleep on Christmas Eve I tiptoed into his room just to watch him sleeping for a moment. My heart melted when I noticed the teddy bear he slept with every night when he was small on top of his dresser. No matter how old they get they will always be my babies!

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Monday, December 6, 2010

Pets Make Santa’s Nice List Even Without Writing Letters To Santa

Christmas can be a dangerous time for pets. Pet owners need to take precautions to ensure that their pets are safe during the holiday season. For some pets all the excitement of the holidays can be stressful. That is why all pets are on Santa’s nice list – even if they don’t write Santa letters.

If pets could write letters to Santa I’m sure they would ask to be kept safe, comfortable, and to be loved. That’s really not asking for a lot!

Many of the plants associated with Christmas are poisonous to animals. Holly, mistletoe, poinsettias, and lilies need to be out of the reach of pets. For cat owners I would advise you to not even bring these plants into your home. It is hard to find a place that is out of reach for a cat.

If you put out reindeer food on Christmas Eve place it somewhere your pet can’t get to eat. The same goes for outdoor decorations. Cords should be hidden so that you dog doesn't chew on them and hurt themselves.

Christmas trees can cause a lot of problems for animals. The needles from a Christmas are hard for a dog to digest. Tinsel can be very dangerous for animals to ingest. Clean around your tree daily to remove any tinsel or needles that are on the floor. Don’t hang ornaments on the bottoms branches. Cats especially like to climb in Christmas trees. If possible secure you tree on the top and bottom to prevent it from falling over and harming your pet.

Never tie a ribbon or anything else around your pet’s neck. This could lead to serious injury or death. There are collar available that have Christmas designs and little bells. If your pet seems uncomfortable with the bell you should remove it.

If your pet stays outdoors for long periods of time make sure that their water doesn’t freeze during cold weather. Don’t feed your pet table scraps. People food is for people, magical reindeer food is for magical reindeer, and pet food is for pets. Our food is often too rich for our pets to eat. Eating too much human food can upset your pet’s stomach. Do not give your dogs table food, especially poultry. These bones splinter easily and can cause serious health problems for your pet.

If you plan on having a party or guests stopping will be by, help your pet to cope. Find a room where they can escape the excitement. If you are having lots of people at your house consider putting your pet in a room away from the guests. You don’t want someone to accidentally let your pet outside. If your pet isn’t used to being around small children put them outside or confine them to one area of the house. Try to make your pet as comfortable as possible. You don’t want your pet writing a letter to Santa telling him you should be on the naughty list. And you really don’t want your pets to receive letters from Santa that agree!

Friday, December 3, 2010

Write Santa Letters – Tell Him You Have Gone Green

This year, tell your kids to write letters to Santa about going green. They are sure to make his nice list. What better gift can you give to the whole world this year? There are lots of ways you can be more environmentally conscious this holiday season. It is sure to get your name on Santa‘s nice list and you will feel about yourself while saving money in the long run.

Replace your old Christmas lights with the new energy efficient LED lights. Each and every night be sure that you turn off your Christmas lights. Besides the Christmas lights, turn off all of the lights in your home. LED nights lights are available if you need dim lighting in certain areas of your home.

Use newspaper to wrap your gifts. Another idea is use cereal boxes for a shirt box. Save any gift bags you receive to reuse next year. Recycle the wrapping paper, ribbons and bows after you open up all of your presents.

Use your imagination to decorate your house and your Christmas tree. Consider displaying Santa letters from past years as part of your holiday décor. And get creative when it comes to craft projects. Recycle whenever possible. You can make ornaments from items that you might have otherwise thrown away. Save clear lids that come on many food products. Cut out pictures from old Christmas cards and glue them to the lid. Next put a hole in the top. Using any ribbon or thread you may have around the house to put through the hole in the lid. Hang it on your Christmas tree.

After your tree has done its job of holding all the gifts from Santa you have to decide what you will do with the tree. If you bought a live Christmas tree (one with the root ball attached) you can plant it in your yard to enjoy for years to come. If that is what you are going to do it is a good idea to dig the hole before the ground freezes. Another option is to recycle the tree. Most communities have a drop off spot for old Christmas trees. They mulch up the trees to use at parks and schools.

Buy rechargeable batteries. Not only are they better for the environment but they save you from having to run out to replace dead batteries. If you have children then you know what an ordeal it can be when their gift from Santa stops working because the batteries are out of power.

When you are entertaining guest use reusable dishes and cutlery instead of disposable ones when possible. All the disposable plates, cup, and cutlery we use throughout the holiday season takes up a lot of room in our landfills. If you must use disposable cups write names on them so people are less likely to use more than one.

If you can incorporate one or all of these you just might get a nice certificate from Santa Claus. He often sends those along with his letters from Santa!

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Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Santa Letters, Christmas Stories And Video Greetings From Santa

Santa letters are a regular part of Christmas for most households with children. In these homes you will usually find a well stocked craft box that is frequently used for many projects throughout the year. Writing letters to Santa is just one of those projects.

So what do you find in a well stocked craft box? It varies from home to home of course, but most craft boxes have various types of paper, crayons, markers, hole punchers, stickers, glitter, glue, buttons, small pieces of ribbon and cloth, and even old Christmas cards. That’s just for starters; some people have deluxe craft boxes that will include much more than that. Perhaps even Styrofoam balls in various sizes and eyes and others items that could be used to build characters. But in most cases, when writing letters to Santa Claus, the basic supplies will do.

Santa letters have to be carefully crafted. They have to look good as well as sound good. That’s why it’s a good idea to have an adult or older sibling take part in the event. Ideally it will be a family event.

Most homes with children also have lots of children’s books in them. Some of these books contain Christmas stories that can entertain kids for hours during the holiday season. During this time of year kids love to hear about Santa Claus and the reindeer. They like learning about life at the North Pole and how Santa Claus loves Mrs. Claus’ Sugar Cookies. Many kids want to leave sugar cookies out for Santa on Christmas Eve.

These Christmas stories also talk about the elves and how they work in the work shop. Another thing they might discuss is Santa’s weight. Sometimes Mrs. Claus is encouraging him to eat in order to gain some weight, and other times she is working at letting his suit out a little so it will fit. And sometimes the Christmas stories talk about Mrs. Claus making Santa a new suit.

All of these Christmas stories give kids ideas about things to put in their letters to Santa. And as they write the letters they are envisioning life at the North Pole. The story books help to bring this belief in Santa and the reindeer alive for them. After the letters are written the kids send their letters off. Their hope is that Santa will read the letter they have worked so hard on and they will receive personalized letters from Santa.

The really amazing part is the free video greeting the kids receive. This greeting will reinforce everything the kids have thought about Santa and the North Pole. They will have an ‘ah ha’ moment as they think to themselves, ‘that’s just like it said in the book’!

While you may not have thought things through, by ordering Santa letters for your kids you will assist in keeping the magic of Christmas alive - at least for a little while longer. This allows your child the freedom to ‘believe’ in whatever and that ‘whatever’ just might be his or her own strengths and powers. As we get older we learn that life brings with it problems and even some hurdles that are difficult to overcome. But kids often have more faith that ‘something’ even if it’s something ‘magical’ will happen and everything will be all right. Is there anything wrong with that?

I say – Write those Santa letters and enjoy that free video greeting from Santa. Let’s keep the magic alive!

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