24 Goods Things To Do Till Christmas

Our Elf on the Shelf arrives on the first day of December and along with his arrival he brings Santa's sack filled with Advent Calendar pouches and Christmas books.

 

In past years we usually filled the pouches with candy but the kids have been having way too much sweets lately so I thought we would do something new and a little bit more meaningful.  I got this idea from a fellow mommy friend and tweaked her (already amazing) list to suit our family a bit.  It's a list of 24 good things, so each day the kids will open a pouch and we'll do what is on the sheet of paper.   

 So here is our list for this year.... 

1.         Make popcorn and watch a holiday movie

2.       Bake cookies and bring them to friends at school

3.       Gather clothes to donate

4.       Sing Christmas songs and dance around a lot

5.       Make cards for your friends at school

6.       Donate books to your school

7.       Write a letter to Santa

8.       Make cards for all the grandparents and mail them

9.       Gather toys to donate

10.      Color a Christmas picture and hang paper snowflakes

11.        Make special cards and send to your cousins

12.       Have a campout by the Christmas tree

13.       Dress up and take silly Christmas pictures.   

14.      Make Olaf marshmallows and dip in hot chocolate!

15.       Bring coffee gift cards to your teacher and say thank you

16.      Give the guards some cookies and say thank you

17.       Do a Christmas song & dance show for your parents

18.       Make cards for all your teachers

19.      Give flowers to your teachers and say thank you

20.     Go look at Christmas lights

21.       Make bread dough ornaments

22.     Call grandparents and sing a Christmas song

23.     Draw a thank you note for Santa

24.     Leave a treat for Santa and his reindeer

So here's goes hopefully something special and hope this December brings you and your family a lot of somethings special too!!

Santa Sack

Our Christmas tradition for presents is that Santa's presents are not wrapped and everything else from family and friends are wrapped.  Well it's a nice surprise in the morning for the children, I just thought they would appreciate each gift more if they saw them one by one rather than it all spread out.

And so I remembered Santa Sacks that they sold at holiday fairs and thought of making my own.  It's a really easy sew and I also custom made little tags that had their name and good/bad tick areas too.  Can't wait to see their faces Christmas morning!

Polka dot and white fabric from IKEA and stripes fabric from personal stash.

Ginger---Ahhh Sugar Cookie House

So my children aren't crazy about gingerbread cookies but I wanted to do a gingerbread house.....so why not make them with sugar cookies?  They were easy to make and bake (using my go to recipe here) and the kids had a fun time making their houses--well---more like sheds since I wasn't good at the structural planning initially.  No matter what, they still had fun and enjoyed their sugar cookie houses!

 This was actually last year's edible craft that I didn't get to post, I had made these from sheet cake (any cake batter baked on a thin sheet) and cut out shapes so that the kids could decorate with frosting.  Another alternative to cookies and they were with a gluten free batter.

Thainie Craft: Tree Decorating Cards

We did these cards at school and it was a big hit.  They're great for card giving, gift tags or just a Christmas keepsake.

All you'll need:
 - Craft paper
 - Contact paper (it's just clear sticker plastic that you can find in big poster size and also A4 packets--not sure why it's called paper since it's really sticky plastic??)
 - Embellishments, glitter, sequence...anything that can be neatly pressed over with the contact paper 

Cut out your tree, presents, stars, snowman, etc... and have the kids place them however they like on the paper and when they're finish just place the sticky contact paper over and admire!

 *** If you like those plastic jars, they are absolutely marvelous and a deal!   You can find them at Makro (I got them at the Bangna one/across Mega Bangna) and they are 10 for 80 baht! 

Thainie Craft: Another IKEA Christmas Ornament for the Kids

IKEA is great for getting some inspiration and sometimes I pick something out not even thinking about it and it turns out to be a great Christmas craft like this one.  

Got these heart cardboard ornaments and paired them with cut up cd pieces for a quick, easy and beautiful ornament for the tree!  

Thainie Craft: DIY Christmas Frame for Kids

With Thanksgiving and Christmas around the corner, I'm getting a head start on everything.  Beginning with preparations for our Thanksgiving dinner, we'll be having friends over with their kids and so I wanted to organize a fun but easy craft project for them to work on before or after dinner.  

I had a bunch of sequins and embellishments (from hoarding of course) and thought the children can glue them on to the IKEA NYTTJA (comes in pack of 2 and all colors) frames.  You can also make these goody bag treats too and just organize them in sets for giveaway.

Note:

- Sadly I'm not close at all to any Michael's but all the sequins and embellishments in the photo are all from Sampeng in Chinatown and range from 80 baht to 100 baht for a bag full.  You can also check out B2S and BeTrend, they have some as well, not a whole lot but beats a trip to Sampeng at times!

- I recommend TOA glue or Elmer's since it's easy to use and it really sticks well once you let it dry properly.

Thainie Tips: Christmas Decorating

Just last week while decorating our home for Christmas I redid our curtains by sewing the tabs down so the rod would not be visible, I got the idea from Pinterest---as usual.  Also, we recently made some changes to our home and so the place where we use to hang our Christmas stockings was no longer available.  And so I thought, why not use the vast amount of hanging space over at the curtain area???  Razzle dazzle, it turned out beautiful, if I might say....  I used a few S hooks for the garlands and decorated some S hooks with a bow so the stockings could be hung on them.  Who says you need a chimney!!!! 

I love Christmas!!!!  

Thainie Crafts: Advent Tree

Christmas, my favorite time of year!  And it's even more special when celebrating with your children.  For the past years, we had used a cloth hanging advent calendar with small pockets for treats but with 3 kids now, the small pockets cannot hold a fair amount of treats for each of them.   And so began the search for advent calendar ideas which eventually lead me to spotting this cute little tree at our local Big C.  Using my wonderful Silhouette machine, I made cut out ornaments with the days leading to a big Santa cut out so that I could tape them to tissue wrapped treats.  And the countdown to Christmas begins!

Here's the breakdown for this fun advent tree (forgot to include a 100+ baht star topper from Central Chidlom --- which happens to be the best place for gorgeous Christmas decorations!) :