I love Christmas. In fact I love the run up to Christmas, Christmas itself and that bit between Christmas and New Year. The different spices, the recipes, the baking, the sparkle, the crafting, the lights, the gift wrapping, the excited children and the baby Jesus who for us is at the centre of it all.

Having a 5 year old is making things even more exciting this year as she is old enough to really get involved in making, baking and crafting. Plus, she shares my excitement and love of sparkles. 

We always make some homemade gifts, I always think this is more what Christmas is about – the thought and time that goes into a gift, plus it helps with the pennies!

This year, so far we have made:

Gingerbread. Simple to make the dough. I then rolled it out for Miss K and she used the cutters. My 2 year old boy preferred the rolling to cutting so he had his own bit of dough to play with. These were then decorated with icing and many sprinkles. We will be wrapping these in cellophane bags and attaching a homemade gifttag.

Decoupage decorations. These only cost £1 each in Hobbycraft and gave my girl a lot of joy. I collect tissue paper from presents, party hats etc… and she then tore this up and used watered down PVA glue and a a painbrush to apply the paper to the decoration. The whole process was done in 3 sessions, so we definitely got good value out of this activity.

Christmas gift tags. I picked up some Christmas sellotape and it was a huge hit. We cut out card and used the sellotape to create a border around the edges, add some glitter, write on a name and there is an easy gift tag!

Pottery handprint coasters. We didn’t do this one at home but it is something I would certainly love to move of. These beauties are really for me, in fact I plan for them to end up in my stocking 😉 They cost us £4 -£5 each to make. The only downside was the huge tantrum my girlie threw whilst there. It happens to us all.

Colour your own cards. These were sent by granny and have taken Miss K about 20 minutes per card. She has taken a lot of care and love over them. We certainly won’t have enough for all her friends, but it’s been a great activity she can do my herself.

Homemade felt boards. This is something I have made myself for my boy. I initially made a felt nativity scene, so we have a piece to add to the scene each day. Having had to make a large felt board for this and having some felt leftover I decided to make some transport felt shapes for the J boy to use after we pack away the Christmas bits. So simple and yet hopefully hours of play fun.

So although the homemade approach is going to mean a whole lot of mess, glitter everywhere for weeks, house in a state and sticky fingers everywhere…. for me it is all part of the festive fun and it creates some lovely memories.