Christmas with toddlers

[Hollyjollynights]

I was just hoping for a place to talk about cute traditions you’re starting, Christmas activities that are suitable for them when they’re so little, or survival tips if this isn’t your first toddler Christmas..

I do love Christmas baking, but I’m trying to find some non sugary Christmas baking recipes too for my toddler because she doesn’t have much sugar yet, if anyone has any suggestions?

Don’t buy much if under 2 because the unwrapping will be more exciting to them than any toy. In fact, I’d probably buy myself a load of gifts for them to unwrap if I was doing it again 😂

What about making salt dough ornaments? Like baking but without sugar and she can paint them at the end. (Potentially you can use as gifts too).

Also saw this salt dough ornament idea which could be a nice sensory activity:

emmaowl.com/christmas-spice-ornaments-with-salt-dough/

I have a 4.5yo and two toddlers who will be 21mo at Christmas.

We do a smaller tabletop tree when they're in the ornament-grabbing phase. This year we might attempt a big tree again (I missed it last year with two crawlers) but only use felt and paper decs.

I love curating my kids' bookshelves in their rooms with all winter and Christmas books come December 1.

Salt dough decorations sound great, I also like simple sugar or ginger cookies, they love to roll things out and decorate.

We sometimes do a festive light trail, booking the early 5pm slot.

But biggest advice is not to go overboard on gifts. In fact at the risk of sounding like a Scrooge, I'd say maybe don't get them anything. 😅 I find my kids get SO much from family and friends (nobody respects my one gift rule 🙄), it can be totally overwhelming for them and take days to recover from.

Yeah definitely don’t buy anything for them last year was such a present fest for our 18month old we couldn’t be bothered to open our own! If we think she’s missing anything after the day we’ll get it!

We’ll do the local Santa special on the mini railway and then dinner out again as it’s brilliant and super cheap compared to other Santa things- think that’ll be a tradition we’ll keep after last year!!

I also do a book advent calendar every year reusing Christmas books and buying more!! This is the first year (she’ll be 2.5) I think she’ll get it and it’s not just for my love of books 🤣

I bought The Works advent calendar books her first xmas - basically 24 normal kids Xmas books. They're great as we have them accessible all year as she loves polar bears and penguins (which feature heavily) but in December I'll focus on reading them more.
For every birthday and Xmas I give to a charity as one of her presents (she obviously doesn't understand or care atm but I like it). I try and choose something she loves at the time so for example I've done Dogs Trust, when she loved every dog that we saw, I sponsored a bear when she loved her teddy bears, last birthday her favourite things seemed to be her pillow and sleeping so I gave money to Zachery charity which provides beds for children without one. This year her favourite things seem to be ice-cream and strawberries so if anyone has any ideas?
We also choose a new decoration every year each for the tree
We make Xmas cards
And we do a light trail and see Father Christmas

We do stockings with things like toothbrushes, chocolate coins, satsuma, bubble bath, and one proper "toy", last year was a bear in a box (a teeny tiny bear), this year she's getting a wind up torch

@JG24 i love that. Strawberry field in Liverpool is a charity that supports young people with learning disabilities
I don’t know if that is too much of a stretch on the ‘strawberries’ theme though

I'll definitely have it as a contender!
I was trying to find a food bank that accepted frozen food as I'm sure lots of families would enjoy a tub of ice-cream over Xmas but most don't accept it. I might just donate tins of fruit and cartons of long life milk plus some other bits as representative of strawberries and ice-cream!
I'm hoping as she gets older it'll help her to consider others at Christmas rather than just think about what presents she'll be getting

I've got a 1.5 and 3.5 year old. I plan to let certain gifts be opened before the big day to hopefully make things less overwhelming. We'll pop a board game under the tree to be opened on Christmas eve, I think that's a tradition which could grow with us.

I've already done most of the present shopping - lots of secondhand books and puzzles - which is something I want to keep up. Not everything has to be new and plastic! Books and puzzles don't count as toys or tat if you ask me so they will have a pile of them to open, and a handful of actual toys.

I plan to do the Big Christmas Feast on Christmas eve, and we'll have sausages (very popular with the little ones, and festive enough if you get nice ones) and leftovers on Christmas day so I don't spend the day cooking.

This year I want to have the big one "give" a gift to the little one and vis versa. The big one might be able to understand that, just about.

What was a massive, unexpected hit last year was reusable crackers - they were pulled repeatedly!

I started a Christmas Eve box when DS (3.5) was a baby, with a game for Christmas Eve and a plate for the Santa cookies etc.
Baking the Santa Cookies and a Xmas Pud in the run up to Christmas (but we’re big bakers anyway)
Definitely a visit to see the big man somewhere - our local pub does a great ‘breakfast with’
Walking round a garden centre and letting him look at all the decorations and lights (The Range also good for this)
He's also asked to go to see a panto this year so will be adding that in at some point in December.

I make gingerbread with DS (he’ll be coming up to 3 this Christmas). He has a pretty healthy diet and doesn’t have much sugar so I don’t mind using it in our recipe, but there’ll be loads of alternative recipes out there using date syrup, xylitol or free from sugar entirely if you want to exclude it. Last year when he was nearly 2, I made lots of Christmas themed sensory activities (Christmas themed sensory rice with Lanka Kade figures, an arctic themed set, arctic themed water or foam play), bought Christmas themed books and Christmas themed colouring books for at home. We do also like going out to events & activities etc - our favourite lights were an event at a RHS site. They were much more toddler friendly (very relaxing and more low key) than “big” events aimed at older kids. Grottos / Christmas events at farms went down well too! Look for things specifically aimed at toddlers, especially if they offer term time events you can get to.

Not the OP but I absolutely love this idea. Saving for us to do this Christmas, thank you!

Last year my toddler ds was utterly obsessed with a 2D felt Christmas tree with felt baubles that he could stick to the tree Like this one; it also meant he then left the actual Christmas tree alone!
we also always do something physically tiring all day (like going swimming, or a very long walk in a country park with a big playground etc) on Christmas Eve so that they are exhausted when it comes to bedtime, and it makes it easier to get them to go to sleep.

Any recommendations on reusable crackers?

I just eyeballed them, but Waves and Wild has a free pattern which is similar to what I did. Two tubes of fabric joined with Velcro, basically.

A felt snowman to decorate was very popular with our toddlers. You can get free standing ones or ones you stick on the wall. The decorations can be repositioned over and over so kept mine happy for ages 😄

We’ve got a small artificial tree in the kids room and each year they both choose a decoration for it. They love having their own tree and turning the lights on.

I’ve bought a few of the Christmas kits on Baker Ross this week and we’ll start doing Christmas crafty stuff soon.