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!)

Did you know that you can easily keep up with the Love Santa blog by following us (LoveSantaAu) on Twitter? We tweet all posts (whether written by us or by the community, so yes if you post we’ll tweet about it!) and other bits of information and updates.

And this week, we’re running a competition through our Twitter profile, too – all the details are in our specials page but the short version is just retweet any of our tweets this week to be in the running.

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.

As parents and families, we often get excited by a baby’s first experience of things – and Christmas is no exception to this.

Of course, what happens for the baby on Christmas can be very different as it could be one day or 364 days since their birthday. A newborn will have no idea Christmas Day is special but an older baby will notice things are happening.

Many of the things done to show it is a special day for the new family form mementos (keepsakes) that can be saved or even reused, such as:

• a Love Santa letter that is added to a scrapbooking album or frame after Christmas
• a toy Santa or reindeer labelled for the baby or ‘first Christmas’ can be used as an annual decoration or plaything for a limited time each year
• giving a (full size) Christmas stocking with the child’s name and year on it – this can be used at subsequent Christmases
• Christmas tree decorations with the name and year or ‘first Christmas’ on the decoration – again, this can be used each  year as a reminder and given to the child for their own home when they are an adult
• mini Christmas stocking with ‘baby’s first Christmas’ printed on it
• a top or suit with ‘baby’s first Christmas’ printed on it – if given early enough, this can be worn at various December events, too!
• a special photo (such as a photo with Santa) can be framed or highlighted in an album
• a personally written letter, poem or story can be displayed that Christmas then stored in a scrapbooking album or treasures box

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!

Carolling isn’t a big deal in Australia but we certainly learn carols at school and enjoy Carols by Candlelight in various parks. And there is something special about being together, singing fun songs and listening to a combined voice.

There are traditional carols, fun (children’s) carols and even local variants of carols (such as an Aussie 12 days of Christmas). Some evoke an emotional feel while others bring a smile (like Santa kissing Mummy last night).

So what is your favourite Christmas carol? If that questions is too hard – what is your favourite type of carol?

Where do you like to sing Christmas carols?

I don’t know if you’d call it a Christmas tradition really but every November I spend the third weekend preparing for Christmas – that’s this weekend for 2011.

I don’t do other things that weekend and get the kids out of the house as much as possible (my parents take them on the Saturday every year) so I can concentrate on my to do list:

1. sort all the loose socks – pairs get put away and most others go in the rag bag or a charity bag
2. empty the kitchen pantry and put things back neat, noting what things will be used in the next week or so to clear more space. Anything not likely to be used gets put into a charity bag (often there’s a box at school around now to collect them)
3. empty the fridge and freezer. Again, things go back in neatly after I review what’s there and plan the next week’s menu accordingly
4. tidy the cupboards and shelves in the lounge room – putting people’s stuff back in their room and other things into the rubbish or charity bags. What’s left is put in neatly
5. I sort my kids’ books then toys, too. Pulling aside things they’ve grown out of (usually that means moving on to the next child) and removing broken things (to repair where feasible, throw out otherwise)
6. If I have any time left (which I never have!), my plan is to sort through clothes drawers to remove anything to small or too worn.

This really is about Christmas, not just a spring cleaning, as it gives me space for Christmas things (stocking on food stuffs for Christmas events and places for new gifts to be stored after Christmas) and also gives me some mental space and energy to cope with December and the whirlwind it always becomes in our house. Of course, it also makes tidying the house easier during December when we have more visitors so that helps, too.

I don’t do normal housework for the weekend and only give the emptied cupboards and fridge a cursory clean as I go – I focus on the stuff rather than cleaning and find I can get through a lot.

I’m not a clean freak (at no other time of the year do I do housework stuff for more than an hour at a time!) but I find this really sets us up nicely for Christmas so thought I’d share the idea for others to use. And now I am psyched up, my glass of wine is finished so I’m off to find all loose socks in the house now…

In the past, my kids have had those commercial cardboard advent calendars with cheap and nasty chocolate inside. I’ve always wanted to do something better but it gets to 1 December and I haven’t set anything up so back we go to the easy but meaningless commercial stuff.

There’s still a good chance I won’t do better this year but at least I’m thinking about it ahead of usual…

I know you can put chocolates in envelopes (one for each day) or stick little bags on a page instead, but I want a little more exciting than that. I’ve heard of good ideas in the past but nothing is coming back when I need it to. SO what advent calendar ideas do you have? Which ones have worked well?

From Christmas cards to movies to wrapping paper, we see images of Christmas that have snow-covered trees, snowmen, Santa in a sleigh, reindeer, open fires and icicles.

Occasionally, and increasingly so, we see images of a warmer Christmas although most are cartoon-like – have you ever seen a Christmas card showing a tree in sunshine or with summer-clothed people around it?

Let’s face it – the entire Southern Hemisphere is in summer for Christmas – it’s not just Australia and New Zealand having warm Decembers – so why should our imagery be limited to half the world’s experience of Christmas?

Do you look for more relevant images when choosing Christmas cards and wrappings? Maybe the lack of snow in Love Santa letters is important to you?

What do you use as backgrounds in Christmas photos or scrapbooking pages?

When I was 6 or 7, my mum and me took a whole day making paper chains. mum cut strips from magazines and stuff then we stuck them together looped through each other to make our chains.

It really was all day we did it so we had a huge pile of chains at the end When we hanged it up it went all around our lounge room two times and dangled down beside the door on both side too.

loved that day with my mum, loved seeing those chains hanging up for weeks. So that’s my favourite Christmas memory and my idea of what people can do with kids for fun in December.