Candy Ornaments

A cute idea I found on bhg site:

We also made a snowman....

This was a little too advanced for Nathan, but Kyla did pretty good. She was able to make the shapes, I made sure the candies were all touching when I put them in the oven. I was not brave enough to let her push little candies in to them while they were warm, but I let her use a permanent marker to draw the snowman.

How to do it:

Preheat oven to 350°F. Lay waxed paper on top of flat baking sheet. Unwrap candies and arrange on waxed paper in desired shape (tree, wreath, or candy cane), making sure candies are touching. Bake for 3 or 4 minutes, until candies are softened a bit, watching closely so they don't overbake and flatten (oven temperatures vary, so experiment to assess the right length of time for baking).
Remove from oven and immediately press desired candy decorations into softened peppermint candies. Immediately push wire ornament hanger into the top middle peppermint candy, or glue it to the back of hardened ornament. Cool and remove from waxed paper.

Snow Painting!!

I got this idea from my friend (THANKS CINDY!!). My kids loved it! I found spray bottles at the dollar store and bought 4. I filled each one with some water and added some food coloring. They loved that they could mix colors, paint bushes, snow sculptures, etc.

We will be doing this again!

Candycane Reindeer

It's a classic, but my kids thought they were great. And Nathan can't look at them without saying "yummy". So we hung them a little higher on the tree :)

Reindeer Cookies

This is a yearly tradition at our house: Reindeer Cookies. Nathan's Cookies Kyla's Cookies
(age2) (age 4)

They really enjoyed making them and loved eaching them!!!

Oh, Christmas Tree

Trees made with green colored popsicle sticks (from the dollar store) and some construction paper. I let the kids pick stickers to use as the ornaments...they were super thrilled.

Reindeer "Paws"

We had fun doing these little reindeer as a family. We used some brown paint and some markers. We wrote the names of the 9 reindeer on them, too and had to sing the song. The kids really loved that we used a red pom-pom for Rudolph's nose to show how shiny and bright it is!

Large Bearded Santa's

I found a coloring picture of a Santa head and printed it for the kids to color, then I let them apply glue and cotton balls for the beard, mustache, and hat. They were incredibly thrilled and loved the feel of the soft cotton.

Christmas Tree (countdown)

I found this idea at Make and Takes. It is a countdown to Christmas, but I just thought the kids would enjoy it, so we made it to hang all month. My kids enjoyed using the paper cutter to cut all of the strips! I cut my strips 1 1/2 inches wide, I could have went narrower. It's easier to see the layers at Make and Takes.