Most people with a family probably like the idea of doing things together and enjoying the Christmas season as a united celebration. Yet it isn’t always easy to do, especially as kids grow older.

I think a key to making Christmas a family event is to include each person’s values and ideals. That probably means taking the time to discover what each person’s values actually are, of course, and then working together to incorporate those things.

For many Australians, Christmas Day is a whirlwind of opening gifts, visiting people and having huge meals before travelling to the next event. Yet what are the little things that actually matter to you and your family? Maybe it’s the tradition of opening gifts on Mum and Dad’s bed or having fresh fruit for breakfast, perhaps it’s singing carols together or having quiet time between gift-giving and dealing with lots of other people, and so on.

Plan at least one important thing for each person into your Christmas Day FIRST and then fit in other things. This way, everyone feel included and can look forward to part of Christmas Day.

Be willing to discuss new idea, too, and accept that some old traditions may not suit any more (what was cute for  a 2-year-old may be embarrassing or boring for a 14-year-old).

Throw in some extra fun, too, as part of the lead up to Christmas – and maybe in the days afterwards. Make things more relaxed, having everyone at home without guests or the need to dress up, and do family things – play board games, sing karaoke, do a jigsaw, play charades, make paper chains, watch a movie, give each other massages or play ‘truth or dare’.

Building some family Christmas memories will make Christmas fun and probably reduce some of the stress Christmas can cause.

Inspired by Jess and Sam’s post about making Lego ornaments for Christmas, I looked up some sites I know offer patterns for other Christmas ornaments. If you want to make ornaments or are looking for a gift for a crafty person, try:

Needlework Boutique (based in Melbourne)

A design by Krista Lynn (I like the Santa one!)

Modern Teaching Aids (mainly aimed at groups but you could just make heaps of them as gifts!)

Just stitching - kids and adults (check out their hints & tips, too)

Christmas crafting and other craft books from Double Day books

Paint Christmas balls (adjust the materials and do all sorts of balls)

Any other suggestions?

Unfortunately. none of the above really cater for a summer Christmas and there is a lot of snow featured. If you know of some crafty patterns that suit an Aussie Christmas, please let us know!

Last year we were in Bendigo leading up to Christmas and saw some awesome lights. Not only did they look good – they actually danced in time to music on the radio!

Good enough that we’re planning to drive to Bendigo specifically to see these lights this year!

Address was 11 Greenfield Drive Epsom (north of city centre from memory).

At Fort Worth in the USA, schools are not allowed to have Santa and gifts in classrooms – decorations are only allowed if ‘part of the curriculum’ and parties only if for educational purposes.

Keeping distractions (like an actual visit from Santa) out of class time – absolutely sensible and reasonable.

Keeping gifts out because they might have to include a religious message? Santa is not truly part of any religious Christmas. Surely if a child chooses to give a gift with a religious message that is the child’s choice? And the child may give a religious message to friends aside from a gift or Christmas card anyway. I am against religion in state schools (so yah Fort Worth for keeping the two separate) but don’t see that Santa and gifts need to be banned – just ban religious images and stories in the classroom.

Just let the kids have a bit of fun and enjoy the magic of Santa and Christmas – why stop them just because some adults are scared of religious connections causing trouble?

Very glad my kids are allowed to have Santa and Christmas at school – could do without excessive gift giving but that’s another topic altogether! How would you feel if your kids had this stuff banned? How would you have felt as a kid without Santa and cards allowed at school?

Having 5 kids, I know about babies and how to care for them I also know how tiring a new baby can be – especially for people who are learning who to do the practical things as well as coping with the physical and emotional aspects of new parenthood.

So after reading Marissa’s story of loving the babysitting voucher, I thought I would share some gift ideas for new parents as family and friends often want to help but have no idea how…

There are 2 concepts – one is to give them some pampering to refresh them and remind them they are people beyond parents – but I’m just going to give ideas for helping them as parents.

• a bag of nappies – most cloth using parents will still use disposables for holidays or big outings
• a subscription to a nappy wash service
• a basket of items such as baby wipes, baby shampoo, laundry detergent, clothes pegs, baby socks/tights and cleaning cloths
• vouchers – think of babysitting, cooking a meal, cleaning the house, doing some clothes washing, buying groceries, mowing the lawn and weeding. For an even bigger gift, give them a collection of vouchers…
• photo frames and albums are always good – but modern alternatives may be gift vouchers from a printing service or spending some time putting their photos into folders (on their computer or an online service)
• look ahead and give the baby gifts for winter  - not only does it save them going out in the cold, I always found that I got so many summer clothes many weren’t used much and winter was expensive
• for very new parents, maybe get with some others and buy a high chair or booster seat (like a high chair for when they’re out) – or give them money/voucher towards it
• ask what they need! Radical idea really to ask but it’s better to ask before giving more singlets (despite what many say, you can have too many singlets!), grosuits and bottles. If they have everything practical they want, look to the child’s next stage and maybe give some infant/child cutlery and crockery, car organisers or training pants
• money or store vouchers may not seem an exciting gift but it is a practical way to help new parents who may be struggling with the extra expenses and less income
• find a way to help them communicate with the outside world – top up their prepaid phone credit, pay for membership at an online parenting site or a play group, teach them how to use Facebook, advice on a good phone plan, etc
• give some music – it can make life easier (such as music that calms a baby), provide enjoyment for parents and child (and music is good for baby’s development), and it’s something that is often left off new parents’ shopping list

I just found some instructions for making some really cool Christmas ornaments. They are even ‘green’ ornaments as you can pull them apart in January and use the bits many times before recreating ornaments next Christmas if you wanted to.

SO check out these Lego ornaments instructions and have some fun decorating your house this Christmas! Great entertainment for the kids and the whole family could work together on these.

Just loving that I found these!

We spend Christmas Eve doing silly things as a family! It started when our kids were little but we all love it so it’s kept going – our kids are now grownup and bring along boyfriends and wives, too. The new comers find it a bit strange at first but soon they’re hooked – it’s a lovely way to relax before the big day and it really gets us feeling good and happy to be together.

A lot of it is just silliness that follows when you laugh a to but some things we do are:

• think up lots of reindeer names for Santa or give each other reindeer names
• tie pillows around our tummies and say ho ho ho a lot
• someone usually finds something silly at a discount shop and we all take turns wearing it and acting to suit – so we get snooty with a feather boa or have a twang with a cowboy hat
• read out spoonerisms (where parts of words are swapped around in a story e.g. Santa’s sleigh skies through the fly)
• having staring competitions
• sing silly songs (like ‘next verse, same as the first, a little bit louder and a little bit worse’)
• tell tall tales where one person starts the story and stops mid sentence for someone else to continue on

I don’t remember such a fuss being made about a baby’s first Christmas when I was younger – I never saw baubles and stockings declaring ‘baby’s first christmas’ until my own kids were at least teenagers! And I’m not sure anyone benefits from this change – well, no one other than the retailers that is.

For starters, the baby can’t read and doesn’t really care – sorry to disappoint you but it’s true. If the baby is old enough to sit up and watch Christmas around them, they’ll be more interested in the wrapping paper, people and decorations than a stocking (especially as many are insipid pastel things for some silly gender bias).

I prefer the ideas from Santa’s Elf on items that are at least reusable - put the year of the first Christmas on the stocking they’ll use for the next decade or so or get a beautiful photo you can display. Much better use of money than a stocking that is too small to hold anything and looks silly if used for baby’s second or third Christmas.

But even better is to just enjoy Christmas with that baby – they don’t stay babies for long so treasure it by playing together rather than buying mementos you’ll just have to store and never look at again.

A special note for grandparents, aunts, uncles and so on – it’s cute to acknowledge someone’s first Christmas with a baby but think about if they really want a cheap stocking or a genuine keepsake. My daughter was inundated last year with cutesy stockings and baubles – she feels guilty throwing them out but hates the idea of storing such nonsense. The friend who took a lovely photo of each parent holding the baby and framed them put in a little more effort and his gift is proudly on the wall for all to see.

My daughter was also happy with her brother’s ‘first Christmas’ idea of starting a family album where a photo of my grandchildren (I assume more will come!) will be placed each Christmas as a record of the family growing.

So I just think people should put a little thought into first Christmases rather than those commercialised ideas retailers want us to follow. I don’t mean to offend, just to get people thinking…

As a cub leader, we’re always looking for ideas for un nights that help the kids develop income way. Throwing around ideas this term we thought of doing a Christmas night where kids’ families come along and share their culture/traditions.

The idea is for a parent/grandparent to talk for 10 or so minutes about the Xmas traditions of their home country/region, showing any costumes or props, then answering questions.

It’s a nice way to celebrate Christmas without just being about gifts or decorations and it’s a fun way to teach them about different cultures and countries (must remember to have a world globe handy!)

For something a bit different, over the weekend I got my kids to cook some biscuits that reindeer and boomers will like – we will make them again on Christmas Eve but we HAD to test them first of course!

Make your favourite biscuit dough

roll out the dough then cut into carrot shapes (I found a carrot cutter in a local homewards store but you could do it by hand…)

put carrots onto greased trays and into the fridge

after about 20 minutes, put tray in oven to cook (15 minutes at 180 is usually enough but check your recipe)

cool then remove from tray

make some green icing and cover the carrot tops

make some orange icing and put into an icing pipe (or a ziplock bag and cut the corner off)

zigzag the orange icing over the carrots

let the icing set then store in an airtight container (if they last that long – my kids have never eaten carrots so willingly!!!)

For icing I mixed 1/2 cup icing sugar with 2 teaspoons of water and 2 – 3 drops of food colour. Add a little more water if needed but make sure it is thick rather than runny.

Leading on from last week’s post about warm vs cold Christmas images, what are your favourite Aussie images?

Baby playing with Christmas Gum tree tinsel

The majority of Christmas cards with an Australian theme are cartoons of Santa with a surfboard or looking like a swaggie or have an iconic animal in a Santa’s hat. They’re usual cheerful and fun, but do you like them?

I think it would be nice to have a bigger range of Aussie Christmas images we could choose from each year. How about some decorated gum trees or people sitting in a park to celebrate Christmas? Love Santa letters don’t show snow, and some are very Australian (Koalas or white boomers pulling a sleigh for example).

So what Aussie Christmas images have you seen and liked? If you can, share them with us so we can all see what is on offer.

Santa understands that it can take a very long time for Christmas Eve to actually arrive when you’re little so after he signs his letters Love Santa he turns the page over and writes a bit more.

Back in 2009, this is part of what Santa wrote on the back of some letters:

I travel a lot on Christmas Eve and it is really special when I arrive to find something made by children just for me. These apricot balls are very yummy – and if you make enough, you could wrap some in cellophane to give as gifts as well as leaving some for me!

You will need: 400g condensed milk, 250g Marie biscuits, 3 tablespoons fresh orange juice, 1 cup desiccated coconut, 1 cup chopped dried apricots, ¾ cup chopped pecan or cashew nuts (optional)

What to do:

Mix everything together.

Roll into balls

Roll the balls in extra coconut, sprinkles or sesame seeds if you want

Put the balls in the fridge to set – you can even freeze them!

These apricot balls are very yummy so why not try them while you’re waiting for Santa and his letter to arrive? If you have made anything Santa has suggested, let us know how it turned out!