It's Christmas! Day 10: Sending Christmas Cards

It’s Christmas! is a 25 day blog and vlog segment that I’ll be doing this December to bring you crafts, reviews, and ideas to make your Christmas season even more fun this year (especially, with this pandemic thing we’re all trying to navigate).

Hopefully, my family can inspire yours to not let this crazy year ruin the holiday season for you.

One thing we really enjoy doing every year is sending (and receiving) Christmas cards.

There are 3 main kinds of cards to send.

The first kind is your traditional card. Some people still send these, but really, the only ones we receive are from older relatives. You know the cards, they have some cute scene on the front and some cheesy saying inside. I can say, half the fun of sending these cards is going to the store and picking out awesome cards. Sometimes people write a personal note inside and sometimes they just sign it. Either way, it’s fun to see the different cards you get.

The second kind of Christmas card is a picture card. These are the ones we usually send every year. You know the ones. I’m sure if you’re like us, you receive tons every year. Honestly, these are my favorite. I absolutely love to see how people have changed and what their families look like nowadays (especially since I haven’t seen most of these people for a while). Sometimes we just do a picture on the front, sometimes we do pictures on the back, and sometimes we write a little note about how our family is doing. Here’s how our card turned out this year.

The third kind of Christmas card is homemade. I think this is the best kind of card for kids to send. Every year, my son makes homemade cards for his grandparents and sends those out himself.

Today, we’re going to learn how to make a pop-up card.

First, let’s get our supplies. You will need cardstock in a variety of colors, scissors, glue, glitter, stickers, tape, and anything else you can think of that will enhance your card.

Now, we’re going to work on the base of our card. I cut a piece of cardstock to 4 inches by 6 inches. This is the inside of our card. We need to fold it in half. Now, we’re going to use a ruler to measure 1.5 inches from each side. Then, we’re going to measure 1 inch up from those lines. Now, using your scissors, we’re going to cut along those lines. Pull that strip up and fold your card again to create a box shape inside.

For the outside of our card, we’re going to cut a piece of cardstock to be 5 inches by 7 inches. Fold this piece in half just like you did with the inside piece. It’s time to attach the 2 pieces of cardstock. Being careful not to glue along the strip that you cut out, glue your inside piece to your outside piece.

This is the base of our card. Decide what you would like to pop up from your card and create that item. Be sure it’s no more than 2 inches tall though, or it will poke out from your card and the effect just won’t be the same. I chose to create a Christmas tree. Before I put my Christmas tree in place, though, I want to decorate the background for my scene inside. I’m going to put my tree in a city. Now that I have my cityscape, I’m going to glue my Christmas tree onto the box to make it stand out.

The last part for the inside of my card is to write a message and sign my name to the bottom.

But that can’t be the end. We need to decorate the front of our card. I’m going to go pretty minimalistic for the front of my card. Now that we’re done, it’s time to put our cards in envelopes, address them, slap a stamp on them, and put them in the mailbox to be taken to their new homes.

I hope you liked our little activity and no matter what kind of Christmas cards you send, no matter how many you send, I hope you will consider sending a couple to the people you love the most. I know I always feel really special when I get cards in the mail.

As always, from my family to yours, Merry Christmas!

It's Christmas! Day 9: Make Paper Snowflakes

It’s Christmas! is a 25 day blog and vlog segment that I’ll be doing this December to bring you crafts, reviews, and ideas to make your Christmas season even more fun this year (especially, with this pandemic thing we’re all trying to navigate).

Hopefully, my family can inspire yours to not let this crazy year ruin the holiday season for you.

Today, we have a simple craft that anyone can do. And it doesn’t require anything you don’t already have at home. We’re making paper snowflakes!

First, we’re going to gather our supplies. We’ll need plain white paper (cut into a square) and scissors. That’s it!

Now, if you’re not feeling very creative, do a quick google search to find a snowflake template to print out. We have a couple here that we’re going to do. Plus, we’re going to make some of our own as well.

Our first step is to fold our paper. There are a couple different ways to do this, but today, we’re going to fold our paper in half diagonally. Then, we’re going to fold it in half diagonally again. Now, we’re going to fold it into thirds. The last thing we need to do is snip off these top pieces to make it flat across the top.

Now it’s time to start cutting our design! You can literally do anything here. We looked up a couple designs for some and just went crazy with the rest. Here’s how they turned out:

So go get cutting! These are so much fun to make.

And as always, from my family to yours, Merry Christmas!

It's Christmas! Day 8: Ringing a Bell for the Salvation Army

It’s Christmas! is a 25 day blog and vlog segment that I’ll be doing this December to bring you crafts, reviews, and ideas to make your Christmas season even more fun this year (especially, with this pandemic thing we’re all trying to navigate).

Hopefully, my family can inspire yours to not let this crazy year ruin the holiday season for you.

We wanted to give back this Christmas. And we have a couple different plans, but the one I want to talk about today is being a bell ringer for the Salvation Army. I always ask my son if he’s interested in doing this, but he usually says no. Well, this year I got him on board!

We went online at registertoring.com and looked for locations and times that would fit with our schedule to ring. They did implement a couple rules this year due to COVID-19 like wearing a mask, not providing the aprons and instead providing a badge, and asking that you step back 6 feet if someone is making a donation. When you sign up, you register for a 2-hour session. We wanted to pick a session that would be while it was light outside so that it wouldn’t be too cold.

We signed up to ring at a local grocery store for:
Tuesday, December 8th from 3pm to 5pm
Friday, December 18th from 3pm to 5pm

When we got there, our bells and badges were waiting for us along with a bag that had hand sanitizer, gloves, and masks. It did get a little chilly, so if you're planning to do this, bundle up. I'm so glad we were wearing gloves. We danced around to keep ourselves warm and hummed some Christmas songs to ourselves to keep us entertained. We're so excited to do it again next week!

If you get the chance, I highly recommend giving back as often as you are able.

And as always, from my family to yours, Merry Christmas!

It's Christmas! Day 7: Shopping Local in Uptown Normal

It’s Christmas! is a 25 day blog and vlog segment that I’ll be doing this December to bring you crafts, reviews, and ideas to make your Christmas season even more fun this year (especially, with this pandemic thing we’re all trying to navigate).

Hopefully, my family can inspire yours to not let this crazy year ruin the holiday season for you.

I was scrolling through Facebook a couple days ago and saw an advertisement from our local children's museum. Since it had been closed since March, they were asking people to buy Santa's Reindeer Riddle cards to support them in this time when they're not receiving any income from guests.

Here's how it works. You buy a card and walk around Uptown Normal looking for riddles on specific business' windows and write the answer to the riddle on your card. Plus, if you spend more than $10 at any of these businesses, you get an extra stamp. Then, you turn your card back in to the Children's Discovery Museum to be entered for a chance to win $500 cash. Any stamps you accumulated along the way by making purchases count as an extra entry.

Honestly, I don't really care about winning the money. I just care about supporting our local businesses. Plus, it was a great way to spend a couple hours. We walked around Uptown Normal, answering riddles and shopping. We had fun just hanging out as a family.

So go out there and support local businesses.

And as always, from my family to yours, Merry Christmas!

It's Christmas! Day 6: St. Louis Zoo

It’s Christmas! is a 25 day blog and vlog segment that I’ll be doing this December to bring you crafts, reviews, and ideas to make your Christmas season even more fun this year (especially, with this pandemic thing we’re all trying to navigate).

Hopefully, my family can inspire yours to not let this crazy year ruin the holiday season for you.

For my birthday, my husband and son took me to spend a night in St. Louis. When we got there, we went to the Missouri Botanical Gardens to see their lights at the Garden Glow. I talked all about this yesterday, so if you missed it, go take a look at Day 6 after you’re done with Day 7.

We then spent the night at a hotel (which was a little nerve racking due to Covid, but we sanitized everything and brought our own pillows).

The next day, we got up early, checked out of our hotel, and drove over to the St. Louis Zoo. Now, keep in mind that I’ve been to this specific zoo probably 20 times so it’s nothing new to me, but I just love it every time. Due to Covid, I did have to get online a week in advance and get us a free reservation time so keep that in mind if you’re planning to come here at this time.

So, I absolutely love the St. Louis Zoo. It will forever be one of my favorite zoos. One of the most amazing things about this zoo is that it’s free to enter. So, if you can find a spot along the street to park, your trip can be at absolutely no cost.

When we went on a weekday in early December, there was practically no one there! It was so cool! We almost had the whole zoo to ourselves. Socially distancing was SUPER easy since there weren’t very many people there. I think the animals enjoyed the small crowd, too, because they were out and moving and easy to see. Yes, there were a couple animals off exhibit due. However, we were able to clearly see animals that are normally sleeping when we visit. Overall, we had such a great time! I mean, just look at these pictures:

Please go out and support your local zoos and aquariums during this pandemic because they could really use our help.

And as always, from my family to yours, Merry Christmas!

It's Christmas! Day 5: Missouri Botanical Gardens in St. Louis

Today is my birthday! I know as adults (especially ones with children), we tend to not really think about ourselves on our birthdays. That's why I love having a December birthday. When I was a kid, I didn't like it that much because I felt like Christmas always outshined my day. People were always busy and didn't have time to celebrate with me. Family members would give me a gift "for Christmas AND my birthday". It just never felt special. Now that I'm older, I choose to see it as an ongoing celebration of life and I'm lucky enough to have everyone celebrating with me (even if they don't know it). Ok, now that you're all in on the celebrating with me, let's get back to why you're here.

It’s Christmas! is a 25 day blog and vlog segment that I’ll be doing this December to bring you crafts, reviews, and ideas to make your Christmas season even more fun this year (especially, with this pandemic thing we’re all trying to navigate).

Hopefully, my family can inspire yours to not let this crazy year ruin the holiday season for you.

For my birthday this year, my husband took me on a little one-night trip to St. Louis. We only live a couple hours away, so we visit here frequently. One day in November, I was scrolling through Facebook when I saw that a friend of mine posted about the Missouri Botanical Gardens hosting the Garden Glow again this year. I thought it looked like a blast, so I signed up my family to attend.

There are different ticket types for this event. On weekends and the couple of weeks during Christmas and New Years, tickets are a little more expensive. There is also a family day (on Wednesdays) where kids tickets are much cheaper. For our family, however, it worked out for us to go on a Thursday night, which fell on a “Merry and Bright Bargain Night”. Our tickets cost us $18 per adult and $10 per child. When you purchase tickets, you choose a time to enter. We chose a 7pm to 7:15pm entry time.

We knew ahead of time that there would be opportunities to pick up hot chocolate, s’mores, and other food throughout the Gardens. We got some s’mores to roast. It was great to take a little break by the fire.

My husband and I were really excited to try some of the specialty drinks. There was the Tree Topper (Fireball hot chocolate) which is what my husband got, Cozy Caroler (Amaretto hot chocolate), Snowed In (Peppermint hot chocolate) which is what I got and it was delicious with the peppermint schnapps, and the Merry Manhattan (whiskey, vermouth, bitters, and holiday spiced simple syrup). I even got a light up mug for my drink.

Covid safety is important to my family so we were pleased to see a statement on their website explaining their health and safety guidelines. Their rules included social distancing from people not your party, providing hand sanitizing stations, requiring everyone to wear a face covering, increasing the frequency and intensity of cleaning surfaces, limiting trash cans to limit touch surfaces, having health screenings for their employees, and adding plexiglass to their sales counters. Overall, we only noticed one person not wearing a mask (who we stayed far away from). So we felt pretty safe.

We had a great time! The lights were gorgeous. And we definitely recommend a trip if you get the chance.

It's Christmas! Day 4: Write a Letter to Santa

It’s Christmas! is a 25 day blog and vlog segment that I’ll be doing this December to bring you crafts, reviews, and ideas to make your Christmas season even more fun this year (especially, with this pandemic thing we’re all trying to navigate).

Hopefully, my family can inspire yours to not let this crazy year ruin the holiday season for you.

One thing that most families do every year, is write a letter to Santa. I wanted this letter to be special this year. My son is 10 years old and still believes in Santa. I know some parents out there think he’s too old and should know better, but I say, keep the magic alive for as long as possible. That being said, he’s going to stop believing soon, so again, I wanted this letter to be special.

I started by printing off a template for the letter to make it look extra special. I had my son use a fancy pen to write his ideas. In order to teach my son what the holiday is all about, I decided to give him some ideas. Santa is a very generous and important man. You should do your best to speak to him (or write to him) with respect. For instance, just saying I want this and I want that comes across as a little demanding. So, in order to be more polite, perhaps you could start your letter with appreciation for his generous acts in years past. You could apologize for the mean or rude things you’ve done this year. You could tell Santa how you’re going to work on being a better person in the future. Don’t forget to also tell Santa what you would like for Christmas, though. And make sure you thank him for his time. Sign your name at the end so Santa knows who sent him this amazing letter.

Here’s how my son’s turned out:

Make sure your kids write to Santa this year and every year to keep that magic alive!

And as always, from my family to yours, Merry Christmas!

It's Christmas! Day 3: Building a Gingerbread House

It’s Christmas! is a 25 day blog and vlog segment that I’ll be doing this December to bring you crafts, reviews, and ideas to make your Christmas season even more fun this year (especially, with this pandemic thing we’re all trying to navigate).

Hopefully, my family can inspire yours to not let this crazy year ruin the holiday season for you.

We have made a gingerbread house every year for as long as I can remember. We always buy a kit from a store. Sometimes we get something a little different though. One year, we made a gingerbread train. This year, we bought the Gingerbread House Kit from Michaels. We always have so much fun! Seriously, we cranked some Christmas music and sang and danced and laughed. And then afterward, we made some hot cocoa and just sat around, sipping our drinks, watching Christmas movies. We seriously had a good, wholesome Christmasy time. Anyways, sometimes our houses look like big giant disasters. Other years they look great! And you never really know what they’re going to look like until you’re done.

So go out there and get your family a gingerbread house to decorate! I’ve even seen people making them out of pop tarts this year! Or graham crackers! Or, if you’re feeling super adventurous, you can make your own from scratch. No matter what you do, just have fun! One of my son's favorite parts this year was dusting the top with powdered sugar to look like fallen snow!

Now, here’s our finished project this year:

And as always, from my family to yours, Merry Christmas!

It's Christmas! Day 2: Christmas Tree Farm

It’s Christmas! is a 25 day blog and vlog segment that I’ll be doing this December to bring you crafts, reviews, and ideas to make your Christmas season even more fun this year (especially, with this pandemic thing we’re all trying to navigate).

Hopefully, my family can inspire yours to not let this crazy year ruin the holiday season for you.

Disclaimer: Technically, we did this before December. But there’s still plenty of time to find a Christmas tree farm somewhere near you.

This year, we decided to visit Hardy’s Reindeer Ranch. This is actually the 3rd year we’ve been here. We usually go on the Sunday after Thanksgiving, but we decided to go on Black Friday this year. I’m not sure if that was a good idea or not, but there’s pluses and minuses to both days.

When we showed up, it was pretty busy! We couldn’t turn around and go home though because it takes us about an hour to get there. So, we wore our masks (which I’d say only about 50% of people did), and did our best to stay away from everyone else. We bought our tickets for the reindeer tour as soon as we got there. They cost $6 per person and include 2 cookies to feed to the reindeer. We fed them, pet them, and even got reindeer kisses from them. It was a little crowded, but we did our best to just stay in the corner to avoid the rest of the people. When we have visited on Sunday in the past, it wasn’t nearly this busy.

After we were done visiting the reindeer, we walked out to the tree farm and looked to see if there was a tree we wanted to cut down. I had a couple requirements: must be 6 to 7 feet tall, can’t be too prickly (we made that mistake last year), and it had to look pretty (obviously). We were able to find our perfect tree, so we went to work cutting it down. Once it was cut, we wheeled it to the front where they shook the tree to get any loose needles out, cut off some of the lower branches, and wrapped it up for us. My husband went to the store to pay for our tree, then we stuck it in our car to be transported home.

Before we left, we popped into the Cafe to get a cookie and some hot cocoa for my son (for $4). He said they were delicious.

Overall, it definitely wasn’t a cheap experience: about $90-$95 for us. However, it was so much fun. We spent about an hour here, created great memories, and came home with a beautiful live tree to decorate.

So get out there, and pick out a beautiful tree for your family.

And as always, from my family to yours, Merry Christmas!

It's Christmas! Day 1: Advent Calendars

It’s Christmas! is a 25 day blog and vlog segment that I’ll be doing this December to bring you crafts, reviews, and ideas to make your Christmas season even more fun this year (especially, with this pandemic thing we’re all trying to navigate).

Hopefully, my family can inspire yours to not let this crazy year ruin the holiday season for you.

This is a big one for us. Somehow, and seriously I have no idea how this happened, we have 6 different advent calendars to open this year.

Quickly, let’s go through all the store-bought ones we have. And by store-bought, I mean Aldi. All of our advent calendars came from Aldi this year. I, of course, bought the infamous wine one. Plus, we had to get the cheese calendar to go with it. I got my husband the coffee calendar (which is filled with K-cups). I got a calendar for my dog. She loves treats of every kind so, it just made sense. Then, I also got the craft calendar. Although, this isn’t a complete advent calendar because it only has 12 days.

After spending all that money, my son felt a little left out because he didn’t have a calendar all to himself. And he had a point. So, of course, being the extra mom that I am, I came up with an advent calendar just for him.

It looks like this:

Inside all of those bags are things like gloves, fuzzy socks, Christmas paper to write to Santa, lip balm, a bookmark, a friendship bracelet, a mini notepad, Lego kit, an ornament, stickers, a game, Pokemon cards, temporary tattoos, a 5-surprise ball, a puzzle, a shrinky dink button, popcorn, a snowglobe, a stress ball, lotion, sprinkles, stencils, hot chocolate, and a small framed photo of my son and Santa.

It was a lot of fun putting things together that I knew my son would love. I know that every day is going to be a blast this year, especially with all these fun things to do every single day.

The thing I love most about advent calendars is that they give a little Christmas joy every day and they help you celebrate, even if only for a couple minutes.

Now, go out there and enjoy every second of this wonderful holiday season.

From my family to yours, Merry Christmas!