This "reindeer food" malarkey........

[MakemineaGandT]

Since when did "reindeer food" become an integral part of Christmas? Obviously a carrot left out for rudolf is a must, but what's with this oats/glitter business? It seems to be a requirement for every household with young children. I refuse to get sucked in....... Seriously though, where's all this come from? Don't remember ANYONE doing it when we were all little.....

Am I the only person who is concerned that the birds will eat the glitter? Isn't it made out of plastic?

I'm off to buy some glitter in he morning! Bet the cat walks in it and then he brings it back in and spreads it around the house!
We have a Santa key.... it really concerned me when i was a child how Santa got in as we didn't have a chimney!

We have a Santa key, my mum expressed great concern that we couldn't leave it outside as "anyone could use it to get in"

Bless her

Quilted rose, I'm guessing that small plastic pieces with no risk of getting tangled or leaching into the birds, (infact somewhat like the inedible seeds the birds are already used to) will pass straight through, I guess we'll know if everyone starts getting glittery bird poo on their cars!

fascinated by this thread as had never heard of reindeer food with oats and glitter!
In our house there's a carrot for Rudolph and he can be grateful. No doubt he'll be stuffed full of reindeer food by the time he gets to our place anyway!

I have a communal garden, the old lady downstairs already has enough imaginary reasons to shout at me on a weekly basis I think sprinkling glitter and oats about would give her a heart attack or something.

I am doing the magic key thing though, I grew up in a house without a chimney and was always told about this magic key so its nice to have an actual key for DS to hang outside for FC to use.

I'd not heard of this before this year but I'd far rather take a bite of carrot to convince the children Rudolph had been than to go out and eat glitter and oats from the lawn!

Rudolph gets a carrot in this house and santa gets a glass of port and mince pie.When i was little we didn't have a chimmy mum told us santa had his own magic key!We have a fireplace so don't have to worry about that.Just reading this thread is getting me all excided

I get conned into buying it every year at school/nursery fairs, but the DC love running around the back garden in their PJs to chuck it everywhere, which lets off a bit of over-excited energy on Chrismas Eve.

Not done the oats thing, but I always sprinkled 'reindeer dust' outside the door even as a child, (i.e glitter...) so that Rudolph knew there was a child in the house (so he didn't disturb old people, I was concerned one year that santa would wake my very elderly neighbour...). Just kind of carried on the tradition with my kids, I'd actually forgotten how my dad started that one..(looking back now, a very good explanation!)..We leave a mince pie and a glass of bailey's out for santa, and a carrot for rudolph to eat, and a bowl of water as he'll be thirsty.

Well Santa himself has informed the dcs that Rudolf is looking for broccoli this year

our reindeer food is a carrot on the plate with FC sherry. I find it all alot to do without adding stuff, although we have done elf - my own elf - sweet, and not there to watch the dc for behaviour but to simply get a feel for what gifts they may like if they cant get their dream gifts and only for about 4 days. but no I cant do more with any additional stuff.

Oh make the most of it! I’d love my DC’s to buy into the whole Santa keys and reindeer food thing. They’re so boring. Apparently it’s not what 19 and 20 year olds do. You’d think they’d humour their mother wouldn’t you?

We made bird friendly stuff with edible glitter and bird seed a few years ago. We also had a magic key as we had no chimney