How do you make Christmas special for young children?

[SlightlySuperiorPeasant]

I've seen so many good ideas on here but would like them consolidated because I'm lazy :o. DS will be almost 3 this Christmas and I really want to start getting him excited about it this year. Some good ones I've come across:

• icing sugar reindeer hoof prints
• elf on the shelf
• letter from Father Christmas (JRR Tolkein to thank for this one!)
• making Christmas tree decorations

Please share your ideas!

make a gingerbread house with them that they can eat

All your ideas are good traditional ones, and work well.
How about getting him to help making the Christmas cake too?
Nearer the time you could watch some Christmassy films.
Is there a Christingle service at your church? That's always a good bet for Christmas Eve to get everyone in the mood.

Now that he's nearly 3, I'm sure all the adverts on TV and talk in playschool will wind him up nicely in time for the big day!

Making reindeer food is a good one - my DD loves this as it's just an excuse to make a huge mess in the name of feeding rudolph. Porridge oats and whatever else acts as the 'magic' ingredient to help the reindeer fly. I usually buy some xmas confetti i.e. silver snow flakes/stars etc. Actually, I usually get a huge pack of them from Hobbycraft and use some to leave a wee trail from DD's bed to where the presents are under the tree for xmas morning. They do a 'multi-pack' with different size/shape/colours of xmas theme confetti - very useful! We bake xmas cookies for santa too. Making xmas cards. Paper chains for xmas decorations? Oh, another good thing to do is making reindeer cakes. I buy cheap pre-made plain fairy cakes (cos I'm lazy too) and we decorate them with chocolate icing (butter cream icing with cocoa powder added to get the brown colour), chop up some curly wurlys to use as antlers, red smarties for the nose and the tiny smarties you get for parties (the big bag with small boxes of smarties) for eyes. They look surprisingly good when finished.

We always go on a winter wonderland walk the week before Christmas. Basically we go to the woods and collect holly and other greenery and bits and then take it home put the Christmas music on and get the glitter and craft stuff out and make fab decorations for the house. It's one of our Christmas traditions now.

This year I'm doing a book advent calendar thingy. 24 Christmas/winter themed books wrapped individually then put out in a basket on Dec 1st. My DS's will then take turns to open one a day. I think they'll love it.

These are all really good!

I need to start collecting cooking ingredients and Christmas books :o

I do a christmas thing every day, I paper up the door Christmas Eve and the paper has to be burst through christmas morning.,

christmas jamas, christmas stories, christmas DVDS (had a box set of 5 for £5 from amazon last year), christmas sticking and making (buy cheap cardboard decs from Home Bargains and then add glitter etc, christmas colouring

OVO I have an advent calender with 24 christmas books inc night before christmas - each little book is a christmas story and hangs on tree after reading.

Pantomine, visit to Father Christmas, walk around to see everyones Christmas lights

CHRISTMAS ELVES, THERE are whole threads about that.

Things we used to do when I was little as Christmas traditions:
-decorate the tree and then the fairy would come in the night and sit on the top.
-cut present tags from old cards (although your dh isn't old enough for this, could he "decorate" some or some xmas cards?)

• make marzipan and icing petit fours as gifts (cut out xmas shapes)

-go to see santa -read christmassy books and work out what part of the nativity story we were up to (eg how far the 3kings would be)

I love Christmas!

go out to walk and look at all the christmas lights around

For me it's about the little things you experience every year, but only at that time of year.

Music is number 1. "are you hanging up your stocking on the wall....." DS loves naff christmas songs.

Choosing a tree and getting it home (we don't have a car ), then decorating it.

The food. Make mince pies. DS likes using the nutcracker, it's a pain in the butt for such a small amount of food but as we only do it at christmas, it seems fun! A giant tin of Quality Street. Hot chocolate.

Instead of buying a crap chocolate advent calendar, we have 24 tiny home-made stockings that hang above the fireplace. I put a card in each one with an activity to do that day. Some are big (go to Santa's grotto, take part in nativity play, go to Christmas fair etc) and some are smaller (watch a christmas DVD, write cards, put out bird feeders, read a christmas story).

DS also gets a reply to his letter, from Santa, that gets delivered along with some reindeer food, by the elves (they leave it in the fireplace).

Loving some of these ideas! Just been onto Amazon to order The Snowman and JRR Tolkein's Letters From Father Christmas for inspiration - it looks amazing and can't wait to read it

Am actually starting to feel a a little bit festive......

DD will only be 18 months old at Christmas but it's my favourite time of the year so am keen to force encourage some traditions as early as I can

I like the idea of going out to buy a Christmas bauble each year and making a collection over the years.

Christmas eve hampers are great. New pjs, something nice for the bath, we normally have Santa bathbombs from lush. A Christmas DVD or book. Popcorn for the movie. Anything you want really to make Christmas eve special (and crank up the excitement).

Make homemade crafts for gps and teachers.

My children absolutely loved elf on the shelf which I learnt about on here

Other things we do have been mentioned above.

I did my first hampers last year.
The kids loved them.
New pjs
Special mug for hot chocolate
Spongy light thingy for bed time
Book

I get worse every year. By the time my youngest (5dcs over 20 years) is too old for it all my house will be like those mad ones you see on the news.

PLease tell me about Elf on the Shelf

Elf turns up during the night usually on 1st December. His job is to watch your dcs and tell Santa if they are being good.

However, elf doesn't always behave during the night. Sometimes he makes snow angels with flour on the kitchen floor. Or maybe he swings from the lightshade.

Other times elf brings surprises. A Christmas book, or craft material to make cards/decs. He might even bring the Christmas tree or stockings or a reply letter from Santa.

When my dcs were little we just had a tiny elf who would turn up to spy on dcs. But elf on the shelf is much more fun.

There was a whole thread last year, Sharing stories of what elf was getting up to and what went down well with the dcs.

elf on the shelf

This link might help of suggestions on
Mumsnet before?
www.mumsnet.com/christmas/customs

Have you done the Portable North Pole website? It is wonderful. A personalized video from Santa. Absolutely brilliant and free! Can't remember address but Google PNP nearer the time. My DS still talks about it now.

Go on Norad Santa Tracker on Christmas Eve so you can see where he is!

Marking my place. Getting very excited about Christmas already

haven't read the replies but I get a pair of wellies and sprinkle talc over them so it looks like Santa has left his footprints, we also sprinkle reindeer food out the front on xmas eve :)

Here's the PNP website www.portablenorthpole.tv/home

I've just ordered my Elf on a shelf

I have always made my DCs a Xmas eve box - pjs, soft toy and an annual each. But ths year I may just do a hamper, as my DCs range from 1.5 to 12, it is getting hard getting them all something similar, so a shared hamper makes more sense to me.

I've have always done Santa's foot prints which has evolved slightly over the past 10 years! I now use talk mixed with glitter and make a stencil to save time.
Note on this, we went through icing suger, flour and other things, just be careful, on some surfaces, can be a bit slippy

Thanks for all of these. I love the Christmas Eve hamper idea! I'm trying to get organised now as DC2 is due end of October.