Thursday, December 16, 2010

Frugal and Fun Holiday Ideas

I have noticed as an adult Christmas is different for me than it was when I was a child. I LOVE buying my children gifts and seeing their smiles when they open them. It just seems that some of the things I did as a child just are not the same for me. We are living far away from all of our family and we will not see any of them for the holidays so I have decided that we just have to create our own memories. Here are a few of the ideas that we have come up with so far to keep the children entertained and decorate our home for the holidays.

- Paper crafts. They are simple cheap and easy. We used cookie cutters to trace holiday shapes on construction paper, cut them out, and the kids colored them. I preserved them by laminating them and put them on our tree so they could see their work displayed. These will last for years and I can give them to them when they are adults if they want them.

- Popcorn or noodle garland. I do not like the metallic garland for the tree as it seems to get all over the place even when it is supposed to be on its own strand. Last year we had popcorn garland and this year we have dyed noodle garland. The noodles were much more child friendly as it was just noodles and yarn. We dyed the noodles red, blue and green and strung them on yarn. it was simple, fun and more decoration for our tree. This is safe for the children and the pets if it were to get on my floor on accident.

- Sugar cookies and frosting. This one is a bit messy but a fun way to spend a few hours. It also is a delicious treat at the end of a fun project. We are planning to do these this weekend as our fun holiday craft. We will make the sugar cookie dough and have the kids help cut the shapes out with our holiday cutters. After we bake them and they cool we will make several colors of frosting and let them help us decorate the cookies. We did this last year as well and the kids were so excited about getting to eat their own special treats.

- Glitter pine cones. We went outside and collected some pine cones. Ours were a bit wet so we put them in the oven at 200 degrees for a little while to dry them out. Then we painted them with cheap glitter glue. When they dried we strung them up in groups of 3-4 and hung them around the house.

What other fun, frugal holiday ideas do you have that are kid friendly?

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