Reindeer Food

Last year we started a new tradition in our home by making and leaving reindeer food outside on Christmas Eve. It is super simple and my daughter thought it was a lot of fun.

The supplies you need are:

Raw Oatmeal

Glitter - we use silver but any color would be fine

Plastic lunch baggies - just to hold the food until you pour it on the lawn

Paper to print verse on - only if you want

Just pour about 1/2 cup of oatmeal in the baggie. Add some glitter and seal the baggie up.

You can have you child print this message on a piece of paper OR print it from the image below and put it inside the bag, or use a ribbon to tie to the outside of the baggie. "On Christmas Eve, sprinkle this wonderful Reindeer Food on your lawn. The shiny glitter will sparkle in the moonlight and the smell of oats will guide Rudolph to your home."

On Christmas Eve you can have your child sprinkle the reindeer food on your lawn. Then magically the next morning they leave a "surprise" (chocolate malt balls) on the lawn to show they enjoyed the food.

Christmas Tree Craft

My daughter and I spent the afternoon making Christmas tree ornaments.

Supplies needed:
regular size craft sticks
large size craft sticks
paint or markers
glue
sequence, gems, glitter
yarn or string

First you need to paint or use markers to color the craft sticks. We used green craft paint. We let them dry for a couple hours. Then I cut the first three down for the top part of the tree. I tried to use scissors at first but that wasn't working. I ended up using the nail clippers for the dog. You could try and break them in half too.

Then we glued the regular size craft sticks to one large craft stick. Then we decorated the tree with sequence I found at Walmart. It was a big bag for $4.00 with all kinds of colors and shapes. I also bought some reindeer, Santa and Christmas confetti sequences at Hobby Lobby when they had them 50% off. You can always stock up for next year. Then as a finishing touch we used a tube of glitter glue and rubbed it over the top of everything to add some sparkle.
*you could use gems or other small things to decorate the tree. It's fun to let the kids just be creative on it.

After they dried overnight I took some red yarn and cut a small piece to make a loop on the back so it would hang on our tree. It seemed to hold just fine with Elmer's glue.

This was a simple great project for my daughter and it made a great gift to send to her grandparents too.