Sensory Christmas Basket Centerpiece (A Simple Christmas Project #3)

With small children in the home comes small changes in decorating for the holidays. Glass ornaments get put up higher, trees get anchored to a wall, and good linen might be removed from the table during a particularly stainable meal. Instead of removing your dining table's centerpiece altogether, though, why not make it into something that is festive, interesting, kid friendly, and encourages exploration and development, too!

This year, I created a Sensory Christmas Basket Centerpiece for our dining room table. It's a white wicker basket lined with a red and green dish towel. Laid inside are a host of objects all signifying Christmas time. Cinnamon sticks and scented pinecones create the base for this piece, followed by a variety of other things with various textures, scents, sounds, shapes, and colors. Silver bells that twinkle and ding, soft felt red drums, velvety bows, a bendable wirey silver garland, a bumpy, hard Christmastime teddy bear figurine, and a smooth victorian santa/polar bear ornament round out the basket. It's not only engaging to the eye, but delightful for people of all ages to sort through as they experience all of the different contrasting sensory input!

Easy to create, a great educational spin on decorating, and affordable as all getout because you probably already have everything you need to create your own Sensory Christmas Basket Centerpiece. Remember to include different textures, colors, variations of pressure (hard to soft), reflections of light (like a shiny bell vs. a dull cinnamon stick), scents, and even pieces that the children can manipulate (like the garland I used). Have fun keeping your decorations simple so you can focus on the reason for the season!

Have an idea to create a Simple Christmas of your own? We'd love to feature it on LifeMoreSimply with a link back to your own blog and a little info about you! DIY projects, gift ideas, celebrations, food...anything that helps keep things simple and real for Christmas! Email your write up to: lifemoresimply@yahoo.com with "Simple Christmas Post" in the subject line.

Advent Ideas for Toddlers

 Twenty Five Ways to Celebrate Advent
~*~ Toddler Style ~*~

 

What better way could you celebrate Christmas than to do it all month long?! Here are twenty-five ideas that we're using in our home this December to help focus on what the season's all about. These ideas can be done in any order (unless otherwise specified or sequential). I put an astric (*) next to anything that I still need supplies for so that I can prepare ahead of time. Have fun with it, and remember to keep things simple so that you can make the activities intentional.

• DAY ONE: Finish decorating for Christmas, start the Advent Calendar (we use a wooden train where each day, there is a box to open which will give instructions for that day’s Advent. If you don't already have something like that, create your own with a clothesline and 25 socks, stockings, or mittens!)
• Scavenger Hunt to find a Christmas book 
• Craft trees out of newspapers, pompoms, and glitter glue 
• Sing and dance to Christmas Carols! 
• Make Applesauce Ornaments*  
• Go shopping for an AngelTree child 
• Watch a Christmas Movie 
• String popcorn and cranberries* 
• Visit the Library and read some Christmas books! 
• Tell the story of the Wisemen visiting Jesus, and receive/give one gift 
• Review the story of the Wisemen visiting Jesus, and receive/give one gift 
• Have the Children tell YOU the story of the Wisemen visitng Jesus, and receive/give one gift (wooden nativity set)
• Bake and decorate cookies* 
• Give some cookies away 
• Build a "stable" (tent out of blankets and chairs, or whatever strikes your fancy!) and eat lunch with your stuffed animals in it. 
• Decorate a Gingerbread house or tree*
• Write a letter to Santa 
• Make a Happy Birthday card for Jesus 
• Make Cupcakes and a special dinner to celebrate Jesus' birth (children choose menu)* 
• After dark, drive around to see the Christmas lights (wearing jammies, of course)
• Make and hang bird feeders made with peanut butter and birdseed on pinecones 
• Visit Santa 
• Make a snowman (no snow? Popcorn balls or craft supplies!) 
• CHRISTMAS EVE! Wrap gifts for others, receive special jammies to wear, tell the Nativity story before bed
• CHRISTMAS DAY! Traditions + finding Jesus in the manger of the nativity set

A Simple Christmas Project #1: FREE Christmas Cards from TinyPrints

I must either be behind or everyone else is ahead for Christmas this year! I started decorating for the Holiday before Thanksgiving, even, but when I went to find and sign up for Snapfish's free Christmas card blogger program, I found that it was already closed....WHAT?! No worries, though, because I found TinyPrint's is offering their own blogger card review program. Now, they have no closing date listed on their website, so I can't guarantee it's still open, but I still signed up for it. :)

TinyPrints offers super duper cute and professional looking cards that you can customize, so hopefully we'll all get a shot at it. The program is only open to bloggers who also have Facebook/Twitter pages (thus you must already be established). Here's the link: TinyPrints.

Happy card designing for your DIY Christmas!

Have an idea to create a Simple Christmas of your own? We'd love to feature it on LifeMoreSimply with a link back to your own blog and a little info about you! DIY projects, gift ideas, celebrations, food...anything that helps keep things simple and real for Christmas! Email your write up to: lifemoresimply@yahoo.com with "Simple Christmas Post" in the subject line.