Trick or Treat Printable

Christmas Printable

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Polar Express Night

I had seen something similar to this on Pinterest and I thought it was such a sweet idea! How it works is you do your normal bedtime routine.  And just when the kids think they're going to bed, BAM. They find a little golden ticket under their pillow.  That's when you as a super cool mom tell them it's indeed NOT time for bed and they're going to drive around and look at Christmas lights on their own "Polar Express".  Complete with hot chocolate and popcorn, of course. So this is how you prepare.  While the kiddos are getting ready to get into bed, that's when you prepare the stuff you need. You can make hot chocolate and pop some popcorn.  This is where Dad can come in handy to keep them out of the kitchen and in their rooms.  I actually went ahead and prepared a Christmas popcorn mix earlier in the day. It's just 2 cups of plain popped popcorn, a 1/2 bag melted white chocolate chips, and then I threw in some red and green M&M's, gumdrops, and Christmas sprinkles. I put them in cute little popcorn containers I picked up at the dollar store and wrapped them with plastic wrap so the popcorn wouldn't become hard.  I made a batch of Polar Express hot chocolate in the crock pot earlier in the day as well. If you haven't tried this hot chocolate, it's a MUST. The recipe is all over Pinterest claiming to be the best hot chocolate you'll ever have. And they were RIGHT. I'll never make the little instant packages again. I also printed out a Christmas lights scavenger hunt that I had also found on…..yup, you guessed it. Pinterest. I figured it would keep their little eyes busy looking for certain things instead of just getting hyped up on hot cocoa and not being able to sit still.  I had printed the golden tickets from a blog I had come across.  But you can also find those on Pinterest as well.  Just search for 'golden ticket polar express.' They have a lot of different ones.  Or you can use the ones I posted below.  I then laminated mine this way the kids can keep them and use them every year.  I put their hot chocolate into a cute to go cup I had also picked up at the dollar store.  And made some little personalized labels so everyone knew who's stuff was who's.  This will remain a surprise every year because they'll never know when those little tickets will be placed under their pillows. And it's become a new favorite tradition of ours.

I'll never get the little one to look at the camera!

Complete with the proper Polar Express attire (pajamas and santa hats), they then walked outside to find Daddy waiting to punch a hole in their ticket and load them up into the "Polar Express".  It was a memorable night full of little surprises without breaking the bank.  Ya can't go wrong with that.

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* A little tip: I waited until 3 days before Christmas to do this. . If you go too early, a lot of people don't decorate yet. So the later you go, the better chance you'll have to see more lights.

A Jolly Breakfast

Christmas Day is not the only special day. Christmas Eve is also a big day for my family.  The anticipation, the excitement, and the magic of Christmas Eve, I think, is better than Christmas Day. I try and make the entire day special, not only at night. So this was a super easy and cute Christmas Eve breakfast that put a huge smile on the kiddos faces. How simple is this breakfast? Make some pancakes the night before to minimize clean up in the morning. Pop on some chocolate chips for eyes, strawberries for the hat (complete with marshmallows for the little white puff on the top), a beard made of whipped cream, and the tip of a strawberry for the nose.  Done! 

Grinch Dinner

Who doesn't love the Grinch?  This dinner was so easy to make and I kept it pretty simple.  

For the table setting I picked up a tablecloth from my local Dollar Tree. Along with the red paper plates and green disposable napkins.  For the "centerpiece" I simply placed the stuffed Grinch I had bought for my son a few years back, printed out a few Grinch printables, and The Grinch movie.  What good is a delicious Grinch themed dinner without finishing up the night by watching the movie?  


For a little extra special something on each of their place settings, I placed candy canes in the shape of a heart next to "Grinch pills" I had made.  I just printed out the Grinch pills printable, cut out green construction paper from a tic tac container template I had found online, and hot glued the printable onto the front of the paper. Then I hot glued the green paper onto the tic tac container. Easy right?

I also rimmed their glasses with Christmas sprinkles. I had read to use chocolate syrup to do this, but I thought that would be pretty disgusting since I was serving punch.  So instead I went for a glass rim dipped in honey and then into the sprinkles. Big Giant mistake! The honey started running all down the glasses and it was a disaster. I need to figure out a different way to do this, that's for sure.

For the Grinch dinner my menu included:

Roast Beast - (a whole roasted chicken)
Grinch Punch- ( green sherbet & sprite)
Who hash- ( I used a copycat recipe of a hash brown casserole from Cracker Barrel)
Grinch Hats- ( insert a toothpick into a green grape, a banana slice, a strawberry that has the leaf cut off, and then a small marshmallow.)
Who Pudding- basically just rice pudding with red and green candies on top)

I made a few cute labels, glued them onto red construction paper and that's it!

Who could possibly be "grinchy" with this kind of meal?  Well, maybe me.. a little bit..when I had to clean it all up by myself.  

Reindeer Food Bar

I've been doing this for years.  Every Christmas Eve night, the kids make a jar of reindeer food to sprinkle out in the yard before bed.  How else would the reindeer find our house without some delicious and sparkly food?  I admit, the ingredients used can totally attract bugs, so try and do it away from your house.  You don't want to wake up Christmas morning to some weird little critters all around.  

The kids can put in as much or as little of each ingredient as their little hearts desire.  It's their own customized jar of food that they made especially for the reindeer.  

What you'll need:

* 5 plastic containers

* oats

* cocoa powder

* bread crumbs

* raisins

* baking powder

* bottle of red glitter

* mason jar or baggies

* hot glue gun

* reindeer food printable

* food printable

Fill each container with a different ingredient. Tape the printables to the containers.  Add a spoon or measuring cup to each one.  


I used a mason jar and hot glued the printable to each jar.  I added some cute gingham cloth and ribbon to the top to make it a little cuter. If you don't have mason jars a simple ziploc baggie would do the trick as well.  Just tape or glue the printables to the bag.  

If it weren't for those cute little reindeer, Santa wouldn't be able to make it to our house!  It's important to treat those little guys right!  And this was the perfect way!

NYE Balloon Countdown

For this, all you need is some crepe paper or string, matching balloons, and a sharpie marker.  Just write on a piece of paper something fun for the kids to do, and every half an hour they pop a new balloon. 


My pieces of paper included:

9:30- Fill out their resolutions

10:00- Take a silly picture

10:30- Play a game of Uno

11:00- Go outside and bang on pots and pans.  (May my wooden spoon R.I.P.)

11:30- Have a silly string fight outside

12:00- The balloon was just filled with confetti

They looked forward to popping each balloon and it actually made the night fly by.  It was inexpensive, fun, and everyone had a great time!