On the sixth day of Christmas ....

Posted on 8:23am Thursday 6th Dec 2012

On the sixth day of Christmas we bring you a guest post from Wendy McDonald who writes at In the Wendy House.

"One of the things that I love most about Christmas is resurrecting our family's Christmas traditions. With my eldest child being 24, I have had plenty of time to come up with tried and tested things to do that keep the family happy over the festive season. Continuing these traditions over the years has given me such joy. This year, my youngest son Freddy is 3 and ready to embrace everything that the festive season has to offer. Doing it all again, and seeing it through his eyes will be completely magical.

One of the things we love to do in the run up to the big day is lots of baking and crafting. It's great fun to get on our Christmas aprons and get messy! Gingerbread is always a favourite to make. Festive gingerbread shapes are easy and fun to make. This year I've bought a silicone mould from Lakeland, to make the parts for a gingerbread house which will be quite an ambitious project. This will be our first time and I hope it will herald the start of a whole new tradition!

I love making personalised home-made presents for our family with the children. Using poster paints and their handprints, we have made reindeer and angel pictures which we have mounted onto cardboard. Adding a small printed calendar to the bottom, makes a present that will be enjoyed all year. You can buy plain white T-shirts for a couple of quid. Getting the kids to draw a self-portrait onto them using fabric paints makes a gift that will be much loved. It also provides a fantastic record of your child's artwork from year to year. Another thing we do is make a video featuring the kids singing carols, reading poems and playing musical instruments in front of the Christmas tree. We burn the film onto DVD and the children make a personalised cover. It is a lovely way to bring Christmas with the children to those who we won't be able to see over the festive period. We pop them in with the Christmas cards. My kids love watching them back every year too to see how much they have grown and changed.

One Christmas Eve tradition is the annual preparation of the Christmas dinner. Over the years I have learned that there is nothing worse than being stuck in the kitchen on my own preparing food while the rest of the family is having fun in another room. So, instead on the afternoon of Christmas Eve we all don our Santa hats and take to the kitchen together. We put on our festive tunes and work in a production line prepping sprouts, carrots, spuds, parsnips etc and sealing them into plastic bags ready to be cooked next day. Making this chore a fun family activity that is filled with fun, music and laughter, lightens the load giving me more precious time with the kids on Christmas morning.

Before bed time, the children all receive a new pair of Christmas pyjamas so they can wake up on Christmas morning wearing festive pj's! Freddy will be in charge of getting a snack ready for Santa and the reindeer and we will sprinkle reindeer dust (porridge oats, sugar and food colouring - which is a bird friendly recipe) over the lawn. Once everyone is tucked up in bed, my husband and I bring down all the children's presents and put them under the tree and add extra decorations to create a real winter wonderland. Then we get a big roll of wrapping paper and tape up a length to completely cover the opening of the door. In the morning, the paper cover hides everything from the children, raising the excitement levels and building their anticipation. On the count of three, the children burst through the paper! It signals the start of Christmas Day and all its magic.

I can't wait to celebrate Christmas with my husband and five children. We'll be enjoying our old traditions and hopefully discovering some new ones along the way!"

Love,

Wendy (Inside the Wendy House)

On the fifth day of Christmas ....

Posted on 8:42am Wednesday 5th Dec 2012

Today's blog post is written by Liz Weston aka @TheLizWeston on twitter. By day she's the Founder of Weston Communications - a social media and PR agency. By night, she writes at CambridgeMummy.co.uk

Five gooooooold rings - here's five things that I want this Christmas, to make the last weeks of 2012 go out on a high.

1. My family around me.

It's hard work having your family around. I'm hard work, they are hard work - it's hard work. But to know that my mum and dad, brother, husband and boys are with me, is getting more and more important, the older I get. Seeing my mum and dad's faces watching the boys playing and messing about makes me realise how much they and I miss out on because they live so far away from us.

2. To not over buy food

I feel like we waste so much food. I'm going to menu plan. I know that sounds a bit Martha Stewart. But I hate it when we're overwhelmed by volumes of food and throw it away. I'd rather budget and try this year, to make a donation to a food shelter so they can help others. I don't mean this in a Mother Theresa way - I just feel like I want us to set the boys an example that we don't have to over induldge - it's enough to just have us all together.

3. To be more of a help at home

My husband works so hard to keep us going, let alone doing all the prep for our having a house full at Christmas. So I need to step up to the plate and do more - I've actually started already - it's not enough to say that I work full time and can't do any more, because he is constantly on the go. The bloke deserves a break. So I've got to do more - it will help me burn calories and stop me eating!!

4. To get out in the fresh air with my family

We live in a beautiful place and I actually quite like being outdoorsy, but it's like the phrase about running - it's getting the shoes on and the first step out of the door that's most difficult !!! I get stressed getting the boys in their kit and I'm sweating by the time I go to put my own on, which isn't a great start. But I want to remember outdoors stuff. I want the boys to remember it.

5. To do less work than I did last year!

Last Christmas and New Year, I did quite a bit of work. This Christmas, I'm buying myself some great books to read, so that I'm distracted enough to not want to check in on things, and to only work at fixed times. I think that I'll be better at the work I do, if I take some more time off.

I know that this is quite serious, for the type of blog I usually write, so if you're disappointed, I'm sorry! I promise there's very little sincerity on cambridgemummy.co.uk - it's much more about the trials of wiping little people's bottoms and taking a sideways look at the world and life in general.

Here's to a brilliant Christmas for everyone and a fabulous 2013! xx

On the fourth day of Christmas ...

Posted on 8:30am Tuesday 4th Dec 2012

Todays blog is a guest post from the lovely Chelle McCann at Social Sparkle .... we love this!

On the 4th day of Christmas I was suppose to have a baby!

Fizz was a little too comfy to come out and arrived on the 15th in 2009. Christmas is always a special time in our house and with Fizz being born 10 days before Christmas it did make for an extra special one that year. The year before we were still planning our January wedding and in a year our family was complete.

I do love having a December baby. It snowed on the day we left hospital and we got snowed in that evening. It meant that we were in a proper baby bubble for quite a while as people could not travel to see her. Everytime it snows now my sister asks what we have done this time (it also snowed the day after our wedding) .

This year I am hoping that Fizz gets to go and play out in the snow, it certainly does make Christmas seem so much more special and obviously memories of our big moments come flooding back. Of course I am hoping to make a big snowman and show her how to make snow angels. It is the first year she is starting to grasp the concept of her birthday and Christmas so we are determined to make it extra special.

Did you have a snow baby and did you have a special arrival during the 12 days of Christmas?

On the third day of Christmas ...

Posted on 8:05am Monday 3rd Dec 2012

On the third day of Christmas my true love gave to me ...... My Christmas Tree!

Now I love Christmas, I think the fact that we have had a Christmas countdown on the Lilypad since October leads us to this conclusion and I am usually more excited than the children about putting the decorations up and feeling festive but this didnt happen on the 1st this year, as it our usual tradition.

I had done two Christmas Fayres and had a pain in my neck (not the children, I promise), which would make putting the star on the top of the tree a little difficult, so I have been a little grouchy for two days and not getting into the Christmas spirit at all. (and when I say spirit, I dont mean a cheeky Southern Comfort or too .... although that might have helped to numb the neck pain).

So creating an amazing Christmas Tree is kind of my thing. I like nice things, I love beautiful things and I adore sparkly things and my Christmas tree is full of all of them. I have spent a copious amount of money over the years on decorations (no french hens in sight) and I have got some absolute bargains too, so its a constant work in progress every year.

My worry this year is that my beautiful tiny toddler will try and climb my masterpiece, she will need more than three french hens to save her if she does ....

Blog : Little Lilypad Co