Games to Play While Decorating The Christmas Tree
November 11, 2008 by admin
Filed under Xmas Activities
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Product Description
Whether you want a riot of sparkling colour or a restrained palette of silver and misty mauve, this book shows you how to personalize your Christmas tree with a variety of projects, ranging from delicate silver snowflakes and gilded baubles to edible gingerbread figures. One of the most popular traditions that everyone enjoys is gathering the family around to decorate the tree. Bringing out the all the different ornaments that have been collected throughout the years brings back memorable moments from the past.
Hanging the decorations on the tree is only part of the fun! Having the family participate in sing alongs of your favorite Christmas songs goes perfectly with the decorating activities.
You can also make a game out of hanging the ornaments. You can separate out all the hand made ornaments, then as you pick up each ornament ask your family members who created the ornament. This can often trigger some fond memories. If the ornament was made by one of the children this helps them to feel like they are a big part of the tree decorating festivities.
Another way to have fun is to find an ornament that you really don’t care for and play a game of ‘hot potato’ with it. Whoever ends up with it last has to try and find something good to say about it. This makes the game fun, but also helps to teach kids to see the good in all things.
Children always look forward to Christmas and you can help build on that excitement prior to the actual holiday by counting off the days on a calendar beginning December 1st. You can also tie this in with your tree decorating activity to make it even more fun.
Here’s what to do. Purchase 24 tiny little gift bags with handles on them. Let the kids decorate them a bit, number each one of them 1-24 and hang them on the tree. The night before each new day arrives, put a little gift inside the bag.
The child will wake up the next morning to find the surprise you left in the bag the night before! If the children are too young to recognize numbers yet, you’ll need to help them find the right bag each morning.
Christmas Day Games For The Family
November 8, 2008 by admin
Filed under Xmas Activities
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Product Description
Over 700 “trivia” questions about the Christmas, New Year’s, and Thanksgiving holidays, each with four possible answers. A unique scoring system keeps everyone interested in the game. Season after season of fascinating fun for everyone. Also makes a great traveling game. Bonus material includes 200 titles for use in charades and other Christmas word and trivia games.
After the gifts have all been opened and paper is strewn around the room, that doesn’t mean the fun has to be over! How about some fun games to make the day even more memorable!
One game you can play is the ‘hat game’. For this game, you will need to give everyone a Santa hat when they arrive. They don’t cost much. You can normally buy them for about $1 each. I got mine at the Only A Dollar Store. Everyone can wear their hats throughout the day to give the atmosphere a festive look, but that’s not the main objective of the ‘hat game’
The main objective of the game is to ‘lose the hat’ because you don’t want to be the last person wearing one! As people go about the day opening gifts, playing games with the kids, eating, chatting etc. there’s bound to be at least one person who will forget to take it off and will be declared the loser!
Another good game is called the ‘guess the contents’ game. What you will need is a pair of heavy-duty socks that come up to about your calf as well as some Christmas related items. You’ll want to have 2 of each item so you can put 1 of each item in each sock. You could use things like candy, small ornaments, tape roll, pinecone etc. Next, tell everyone how many items are in the socks and let each person feel the sock. The purpose of 2 socks is to make the game go faster but if the group is small 1 sock will do. Have each person write down what they think the contents of the socks are. The one who wins gets to keep the socks!
If you have some people who like to be the center of attention in your group, you may opt to play a little game of “Christmas Idol”. You will need to setup a couple of tables for the ‘judges’ to sit at and then let the performers take the floor and sing a Christmas song. You can have them dress up for the part and have some fun with the song to make it more entertaining. To add a little twist to the judging you may want to let the kids judge the adults and vice versa, if you have some kids who like to ham it up as well. For the adult winners you can give them a Christmas CD. For the kids, some kind of toy or candy is always a hit!
If you have a way to video tape the “Christmas Idol” contest, you can make enough copies for everyone and give them as gifts next year. Who knows, this could start a whole new tradition for your family as year after year they look forward to receiving a DVD of last years contest. It is also a good way to remember those we have lost over the years as well as a way to watch the children grow up.
There Is Something Comforting About Christmas Traditions
November 7, 2008 by admin
Filed under Xmas Activities
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Product Description
Grandma’s heirloom ornaments. The family carol singalong. Aunt Millie’s fruitcake. We all have our special holiday traditions we practice year in and year out. This book not only embraces these old standbys, but also explores unique rituals celebrated the world over. This heartwarming collection evokes the memories of Christmas past with such stories as:
Holly Berry Dreams, in which a young girl hangs holly leaves above the doorway as a sign of better times to come while waiting for her father to return from war
PJ Presents, featuring a single mom who enlists her neighbor to leave new pajamas on the front porch every Christmas Eve to surprise her children
Too Much Christmas, in which a young mother buys up all the leftover tags on the Giving Tree, leaving her with too many tags and too little money
Christmas Diaries, featuring a Scottish family who exchanges a diary every Christmas with their extended family in Germany that details the highlights of the past year
With touching stories like these, this book is the perfect gift to commemorate old traditions and create new traditions—for many Christmases to come.
About the Author
Helen Szymanski (Milan, MI) has more than twenty-five years of experience in the publishing field. Over the years, she’s worn many hats, including that of a newspaper reporter and editor, photojournalist, columnist, anthologist, book author, website writer, ghostwriter, book editor, screenwriter, and movie and book reviewer. She is the editor of Classic Christmas and Christmas Through a Child’s EyesFamilies all around the world get together for Christmas and observe traditions that are the same for them year after year and yet vastly different from those that other families share around the block. While there are very few universal Christmas traditions, there are some items that many people consider traditional holiday cooking and there is little that will be done to dissuade these opinions. The truth is that many of these traditional holiday foods are largely traditional in specific regions rather than the United States having one nation wide traditional Christmas dinner.
Turkey or ham? For some families the answer is both while others answer quite quickly that it is neither. One of the best all-American Christmas cooking ideas I’ve ever seen was lasagna. It was a Christmas Eve tradition of my best friends family. I was twelve at the time and before that Christmas Eve I never knew that some families ate something different than Turkey or Ham for Christmas. There are no right or wrong traditions. There are only those traditions that work well for you and your family. If you feel the need to change a long-standing tradition for a large extended family, by all means discuss it with everyone involved. Otherwise it is your tradition and you should feel free to make it your own or change it to suit your needs.
At the same time, there is something comforting about having those traditions to come home to year after year. I can’t help but think of the movie “Christmas With The Kranks”. The entire movie is spent in an attempt to break with the traditional Christmas trappings and trimmings only to make a mad dash to return to them in the end. That is often the way things go when attempting to break with tradition. If you are considering this for the first time this Christmas be sure to hang on to some of your old traditions in case you find that it just doesn’t feel like Christmas without them. You certainly don’t want it to be too late and miss out on the spirit of Christmas in your home.
Other great traditional favorites for many Americans as far as Christmas cooking goes are: sweet potato casseroles, devilled eggs, dressing or stuffing, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, pumpkin pie, apple pie, mince meat pie, and pecan pie. There are also regional favorites that are often highly dependent upon where you live such as key lime pie, lemon icebox pie, oyster dressing, and deep fried turkey. If one of these is a Christmas tradition at your home, you will always think of home or Christmas whenever you come across them. It’s really amazing how one smell can make family and friends who are far away seem that much closer.
That is one of the best things about Christmas traditions. We can pass them along to our children who one day will find that they are a little less alone because someone in an airport is eating a slice of key lime pie or having a dish of macaroni and cheese. If you don’t have any Christmas traditions, it is time to develop a few. Whether it is a special Christmas Dinner, Christmas Games played year after year, making Christmas Cookies or singing a Christmas Song, starting a Christmas Tradition will allow you to share something special and almost sacred with your friends and family.
Tips For Making Christmas Cookies With The Kids
November 5, 2008 by admin
Filed under Xmas Activities
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Product Description
This colorful collection of Christmas cookies is something to celebrate! With nearly 100,000 copies sold, it’s already a family favorite—and that’s no surprise with such scrumptious recipes as Chocolate Crinkles, Candy Cane Twists, Snowballs, and Raspberry Tarts to choose from. These cookies are as simple to bake as they are yummy to eat. Every recipe features steps that kids can easily handle, and ideas for variations that inspire creativity. Savor them, turn them into beautiful ornaments, or give them as a holiday gift—there’s excellent advice on wrapping and mailing them, too!
For many families, Christmas cookies are as much a part of the Christmas tradition as a visit from Old St. Nick himself. Christmas cookies are often prepared by children so they can leave milk and their homemade cookies for Santa. Preparing the Christmas Cookies with your children can be a great time of bonding and memory making. It can also be a trying time if you don’t follow a few of the tips and hints listed below.
To make cooking Christmas cookies and/or candy with your little ones the very best experience that it can possibly be, make sure you do it on a day when this is the only thing on your calendar. You do not want to rush through this time that is not only important for bonding with your child as a parent but also a time that is an important opportunity to lock in a few precious memories of great times you’ll spend together. This is one thing that you want your children to look back at and remember the fun of doing it with you. You will also want to be able to look back on Christmas and remember doing this with your children.
You should make sure that everyone is well rested and well fed before beginning the process. This is important now more than ever before. We now know more about the dangers of foods, such as raw eggs, that are included in cookie dough as well as in the dough of many of our other favorite Christmas confections and candies. You do not want to risk the health of your children through the temptation of raw cookie dough.
You will want to make sure that every child gets a turn with the fun stuff. This includes using the mixer and watching things spin around as well as choosing their personal favorites for the next batch of cookies. You should also make a few cookies that you plan to let them paint, decorate, and play with just for fun and their own personal enjoyment. This will guarantee a few smiles while also scoring a few brownie points for mom.
Be patient and expect spills and messes. If you can afford a cleaning service once a year, the day after your cookie extravaganza is the day you want to splurge. Seriously, don’t sweat the small stuff. We all make little messes every day so it shouldn’t be such a shock when they make a really big mess in one day. This is one of the reasons why you want to plan your cookie making on a day when the calendar is clear-you will need time for clean up when all is said and done.
Make sure you have all the necessary ingredients for each recipe before you begin. This is very important as cookie dough doesn’t wait well for that final egg. Children also don’t understand very well when they are interrupted from a project to run a quick errand. And when was the last time you made it in and out of the grocery store in under an hour, especially when kids where with you?
With careful planning and a good attitude, you should be in for smooth sailing. Anytime you feel yourself getting aggravated or stressed just remember, they will not be kids for long. Enjoy the time you have with them as children. You will never get these years back.
