T'was The Night Before Christmas...

Tomorrow is Christmas Eve! The kids are getting excited for Christmas morning, family are starting to arrive home for the holidays and Christmas parties are commencing.
Sometimes things can get a little chaotic getting last minute things done and trying to keep the kids calm and entertained amongst all the excitement. I thought I would share a list of things to do the night before Christmas with your family to keep chaos at bay.

1. Bake cookies for Santa:

Check out this Pudding Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe:

2. Last minute gift wrapping: 

Make Christmas Pin Wheel Bows:

3. Watch Christmas movies:

 Some of our family faves:

* It's a Wonderful Life

* White Christmas

*Elf

*How The Grinch Stole Christmas

*Charlie Brown Christmas

*The Nativity

4. Play board/card games

5. Read about Christ's birth in Luke Chapter 2

Well, this post concludes my {handmade} Days of Christmas! I hope the last few weeks have been inspiring and fun! Merry Christmas!!

Reindeer Games

Today, I have gathered up some more kids crafts! Ran across some cute Reindeer crafts for kids and could not resist sharing:

 Reindeer Puppet

Reindeer Hat

Reindeer Paper Craft

Reindeer Candy Cane

Snow Flake Fun

To start off the snow flake fun, I want to share this recipe I came by on allrecipes.com: Snow Flake Cocoa.

Ingredients

• 2 cups whipping cream
• 6 cups milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 (12 ounce) package white chocolate chips
• Garnish:
• Whipped cream
• Candy canes

Directions

1. Stir together the whipping cream, milk, vanilla, and white chocolate chips in a slow cooker.

Cover and cook on low for 2 to 2 1/2 hours, stirring occasionally, until mixture is hot and chocolate chips are melted. Stir again before serving. Garnish with whipped cream and candy canes, as desired.  

Though the recipe is a little time consuming, I know just the thing to do while your cocoa is cooking- put on some Christmas music and make some snow flake garlands!

I just cut out some snowflakes and then threaded onto some white thread and hung 'em up.

My finished product!

 Also, here is another fun activity that the little kiddos will enjoy!

Macaroni Snowflakes!

Source: katyelliott.com via Myra on Pinterest

Nativity Crafts and Activities

I just LOVE these Nativity activities from KatherinMaries.com!

  Nativity Activities

Another great activity. It's a printable that your kiddos can color and cut out. 

Nativity Printable

Since my son is still little we decided to do the  nativity printable.We even got my husband to help color the pieces! Here's how it turned out!:

O' Christmas Tree

 

I'm totally inspired by all of these Christmas Tree Crafts and I hope that you get inspired too!

DIY Christmas Trees

Handprint Christmas Tree

Twiggy Trees

Paper Trees

Ribbon Tree

Christmas Tree Applique

Free Christmas Printables for Kids

 

My son LOVES to color. What kid doesn't?  Here are some free printables that I found online along with their links.

Winter Day Printable Book

 

Nativity Color Page Printable

Christmas Tree Printable

Click each link to go to the site to find even more free printables! 

Here is what my son's colorings look like:

"Hands On" Christmas Gifts from Kids

Family members (especially grandparents) LOVE homemade gifts from the kids! I rounded up a few (last-minute) neat crafts your kids can make for loved ones using their little hands:

Reindeer Hand-Print Ornaments

Hand-Print Calendar Gift

 

Hand-Print Snowmen Ornament

Hand-Print Magnets

Baked Goods Gifts

A simple and inexpensive gift idea for teachers, neighbors and friends are homemade baked gifts. They go over really well too! The combination of yummy treats in pretty, festive packaging is always a welcomed gift.
I gathered up a few nifty baked gifts I found on some of my favorite sites to share:

Easy Cookies

Pretzel Treats

White Chocolate Popcorn

S'more Kits 

Reindeer Food

In a Jar Gifts

Today I rounded up some "In a Jar" Gift ideas for you. The activities are great for kids too, they can help measure out ingredients, count out objects to be put in the jar, make tags for the jars, etc.

Peppermint Cocoa

Source: Sunset.com 

Sewing Kit

Source: Frugaliciousme.com

Gift Card Snow Globe

Source: The Creative Mama 

Mason Jar Cupcakes

Source: Joyshope.com


Pie in a Jar

Lemon-Sugar Hand Scrub

Everything in a Jar

How cool are these UNIQUE "in a jar" gifts?! I'm really digging the "Everything in Jar" gifts!

I decided to try out my own "Everything in a Jar" gifts: 

I also whipped up these "Date Night" Hot Cocoa "in a jar" gifts as extra gifts to pass out at our annual Christmas Party. They are "Date Night" Hot Cocoas because there are 2 servings in each jar. I just need to add some festive ribbon/strips of fabric and tags and they will be done!

I hope you enjoyed looking through these and were inspired as much as I was!!