How lucky am I to have friends over two days in a row? Very. Brady ran around and completed a bunch of small jobs for friends all day while I stayed home and visited with Hailey. She came with coffee and warmth, and we had a great visit all afternoon. Dekker was comfortable with her right off the bat, which was a great surprise! He hasn’t seen her in a while, and while I had high hopes, I didn’t know how he’d respond to having someone else in the house. That doesn’t always go smoothly. But he greeted her with smiles and showed off all of his mad running and falling skills. He did great, and only was sad at nap time. He didn’t fight it though, and cried for less than five seconds after I left his room. Both kids slept like logs for almost three hours.
While the littles slept, Hailey and I caught up. She leads a crazy life, as most of my friends do, so there is always tons to talk about. We cover life, friends, school, work, and we even talked Christmas. I’m getting really excited for Christmas!!!
I guess the question is what do you guys do for Christmas? We have our regular traditions with my parents, and siblings if they’re around. We are just really wanting to build traditions within our household, and its hard to figure out what we can do with such little kids. Can you guys fill me in on some activities that you do with your kids that are three and under? Here are some ideas/thoughts that I had:
Christmas tree cookies: As a kid, I loved making these chocolate cookies in the shape of Christmas trees. We’d stick two cookies together with minty green icing. I wouldn’t even say they were the yummiest cookies in the world, but I loved the tradition when I was little. I know the activity of icing cookies is still over Dekker’s head, but I know he loves when I bake and use the mixer, and he loves to be up on a chair, right in the middle of the action. So he might enjoy it, right? Laela would be the eye candy in the high chair eating icing, so I doubt she’ll complain either.
Maybe dipping treats in chocolate? Marshmallows, pretzels, etc. Really easy, and we have lots of good sprinkles and stuff that little fingers could decorate with.
I was contemplating cutting snowflakes, but even as a bit of an older kid, I remember making that mistake and cutting that one side just a little too much and having it all fall apart. Thinking that might not work.
Do we just color Christmas pictures?! Thats not too riveting hey?
What do you guys think? I love the idea of making Christmas cookies and bringing them to neighbours and learning about giving and all that good stuff, but I just feel like Dekker would find that so scary still, with the way he is with strangers, and I’m not sure that would be a great activity for him just yet. Please, all, thoughts and ideas are welcome!!! What do little little ones like to do for Christmas???!
We would drive around and look at the lights. Have a tea/hot chocolate party. Watch a Christmas movie. A friend of mine recently made some really great apple cider scented play dough and I saw this really cool idea of using puffy paint on wax paper to trace snowflakes and after you let it dry you can peal them off and make window stickies.
You can make salt dough decorations that the kids can paint (or get them to make hand/feet prints to keep).
You can tell Jesus’ birth story and get the kids to help you act it out with little figurines (there is a little people nativity set that’s for kids to play with but it’s a bit pricey).
I could probably come up with a bunch more but won’t clog up your comments section. Pinterest has been a great asset for that kind of stuff 🙂
You are full of awesome ideas!!! We did the lights thing last year, which was really fun, with a fancy dessert at Moxies afterwards. Forgot about that. I LOVE the window sticky idea!!!
One of the best was the year we made a birthday cake for Jesus (not ‘Christmasy’…..but my at-the-time typical angel-food covered with whipped cream, strawberries and candles, and then read the story of His birth, sang Happy Birthday to Jesus, and enjoyed the cake. My five year old took far more joy out of the making, decorating, hearing, singing and eating than the rest of the secular stuff. Shame on me that I let that lapse when we spent several years of Christmases away from home.
I love that idea!!! A great way to teach about Jesus birth before they can grasp the weight of the whole story! Dekker definitely remembers and loves birthdays now, so thats a fabulous idea!!