Elfie, A Visit to the North Pole and ornaments Day 3 of our Countdown to Christmas

See the end of this post to make these North Pole Ornaments

This morning Elfie surprised us with what daddy thought was a mountain. Sierra however yelled, "Look Elfie made us a Christmas tree"! I guess Elphie should have used all the Mountain Dew instead of Diet Coke and our our mountain would have really looked like a green tree :)

Elfie also brought a very special invitation with him for the girls.

Since our Day 3 for our countdown to Christmas match box said the North Pole I had to improvise and say we were going to make Christmas Decorations tonight instead when Sierra opened the number 3 matchbox.

Daddy had to return to the emergency room this morning to get an ultrasound so we all had to get ready to go to the North Pole without him, in the hopes that he would be able to join us when he was finished.

We arrived at the North Pole early

and played around with the puppet theater,

the dress up clothes,

and then daddy arrived just in time for our 12:00 tour. The girls were all dressed up and went running to him as he signed in. We were so happy he could make it!

Before getting into our tour I must tell you that despite the fun the girls had I think this day was very over priced for what we got. I have no problem paying the close to $22 per child but paying $22 per adult was a rip off for the 4 adults that attended. There was also a lot of waiting around and the elves all seemed a little disorganized and showed up late for our guided tour. The worst was having to wait 20 minutes from our schedule time to get pictures with Santa. The girls were getting very restless.  Luckily Santa did a great job and was worth the wait.

The North Pole  had many different cabins all decorated. Some you visit on the tour and some you are free to visit after your tour.

We started our tour off with a visit to Elf School. Here the girls learned how to guide the reindeer during take off and landing, how to elf dance and smile like an elf :) After leaving here they gained magic in their fingertips for use late in their tour.

The girls learning the commands to guide the reindeer

Practicing their elf smiles

Next we headed off to the Sym-Funny where the kids all got to play with musical instruments and do the reindeer pokey.

Then we went off to the inventors station where we disturbed a very tired elf but she quickly woke up to show the kids some of her inventions. Here is where the kids had to use their magic elf fingers to create the static power below.

Next we headed to the post office to mail the Santa letters Elfie left for them this morning. The girls got their letters stamped at the post office and then were able to mail them directly to Santa.

Next we were off to see Mrs Claus. She had been busy doing the laundry but took a break to read everyone a story.

Sierra sneaking a stir of Mrs Claus's cookies

Then it was our time for pictures with Santa. Luckily the girls and Grammy Sue had the dress up clothes to keep us entertained again for 20 minutes while we waited for our scheduled time for our picture with Santa.

Who is that silly looking elf?

Finally we got to see Santa :) He did a great job. He recalled the girls names and knew a little about each child and gave the girls a gift (that cost $5 per child to have him deliver the gift we wrapped and brought...your other choice was having a $35 bear delivered. Had I realized we would have been in the room with Santa a lone I wouldn't have bothered even with the gift delivery. I just didn't want to answer the question, "why did that girl get a gift from Santa and not me"? I caved to the pressure). Santa was really good but did they really need to charge for that???

After seeing Santa our tour was complete and we were free to walk around to some of the other cabins we didn't see on the tour. Our first stop was to decorate cookies.

Grammy Sue, Daddy and Nana Diana decorating their cookies with the girls

Aayla is all finished hers...doesn't the elf look impressed?

Sierra is very proud of her cookie

Next we were off to the gift wrap station where the girls got to use stamps and ink pads to make a piece of wrapping paper to take home.

The last cabin was a toy making cabin where they had build a bears for purchase to build. They did have a large stuffed toy that everyone could help stuff for those who didn't want to buy a build a bear...thankfully! We quickly gave it a try and left before the next child came in to purchase a bear!

Then our day was over and it was time to say goodbye to the North Pole. The girls had a lot of fun and the North Pole was nicely decorated but as I mentioned...paying $44 for the girls would have been worth it but paying close to $132.oo for us, Grammy Sue and Nana Diana to come was WAY over priced!

We went home to make our countdown to Christmas activity which was switched to making ornaments. I saw THIS cute ornament yesterday on a new blog I stumbled across and decided to make them.

Here is ours and how to make them:

All you need is some paint/brushes, 2 tounge depressors, a Popsicle stick, permanent marker, scissors, pipe cleaner or string to hang and a hot glue gun.

Follow the drawing below and cut one tounge depressor and Popsicle stick as shown.

Paint everything white, allow to dry and paint red stripes on the uncut tounge depressor.

Next with a permanent marker write "North Pole" on the large arrow piece. On the two smaller Popsicle pieces, write home on one, then school or daycare or Grammy's house etc on the 2nd one. Add the distance to get there and an arrow showing which direction to go. We added pipe cleaners for the hangers but you could use any ribbon or string.

We also made some Christmas tree decorations out of Popsicle sticks tonight too. You just cut some Popsicle sticks into 5 different lengths and paint them green. Paint a tounge depressor brown. Allow to dry. Glue the green pieces to the brown trunk from smallest at the top to the largest piece at the bottom (I like to use the hot glue gun for this). Glue on a star to the top, and then sequins to decorate the branches. Add something to hang. 

My girls enjoyed making these trees a lot :)

Elfie, Winter Sensory Box but no out door fire on Day 2 of our countdown to Christmas

This morning when we awoke the first thing Sierra said to me was,

"let's go see if Elfie is in his box and if he's not, remember we can't touch him or his magic will disappear"! 

So we walked downstairs to discover that Elfie had broken out of his box during the night... Oh how exciting....where could he be?

Sierra took a quick run around the house but couldn't find him anywhere so she decided to sit down for breakfast and a few seconds later she let out a screech...she found Elfie!

He returned from his nightly visit to see Santa at the North Pole and found himself a nice little resting place on our family wreath I made a few years ago. It has been hanging for a few years and has lost a few of it's pictures :(  but the icicles must have made Elfie feel like he was back home at the North Pole.

Sierra was so excited! She almost forgot about our countdown to Christmas matchboxes...almost! Today was Aaylas turn so she opened the number 2 box, picked her sticker and shared the other.

Day 2) Winter sensory box and enjoy some hot chocolate outside by the fire.

Here is the sensory box I put together for them for today's activity.

I used a large tub so they can both have room to play together. I added some rice, some opalescent glitter flakes, some arctic animals, some fake ice cubes, cotton balls and white foam letters they can search for the letters to spell their names.

I didn't get any pictures of them playing in it this evening and we couldn't have our hot chocolate by the outside fire because I spent all day/evening running back and forth from the ER! My husband has had a reoccurring abdominal pain every few months for the past 7 years and it usually lasts an evening and is gone. This time it's lasted almost 2 weeks so after a visit to our doctor this morning she sent us to the hospital where we waited away most of the day. I ran back and forth to pick up Sierra from school, then later again to get Aayla from daycare, fed the girls, got them to bed and back to the hospital I went. Thankfully Nana is visiting and could stay with them tonight as we just got home at 11:50pm!

So the girls enjoyed the winter sensory box without me, and we didn't have our fire but we do get to get up at 6:00am to go back to the hospital for an ultrasound! At least something came of our day in the ER.

Now I'm off to bed or Elfie won't have enough time to get to the North Pole and back again before we wake up :)

Elf on the Shelf and Christmas Pattern Blocks Day 1 of our Christmas countdown

I'm thankful that late last night Frugal Family Fun posted on face book "Do you have an elf on your shelf?". It caught my attention right away...an elf on your shelf...does she mean decorating already for Christmas? I was intriguged so I read through all the comments to try to figure it out and was pleasantly surprised! I ran right out to buy one this morning as it fit perfectly in with out first countdown to Christmas activity.

Day 1) Dig out the Christmas books and music and make Christmas designs with the Pattern blocks

So we dug out all the Christmas books and sat down to read a lot of them right away.

and then I brought out the Elf on a Shelf and the magic and excitement just burst out of Sierra especially.

 As soon as I told them briefly about what the story was about Sierra went running down stairs to tell daddy and nana and she was just bursting at the seams! We read the story together and afterwards (see picture below) Sierra bends over to the box that the elf comes in, leans close to the hole cut out in the protective plastic and tells the elf, "Elfie (our elfs new name) please don't fly away at Christmas...I want you to stay all year"

 Us all pictured with Elfie...our newest Christmas tradition.

If you are looking for a new family tradition then consider the Elf on a Shelf! It's a fun way to make the magic of Christmas come alive in the weeks before Christmas instead of just Christmas Eve. The kit comes with a wonderfully vintage looking little elf  and a story book about how Santa keeps track of who has been naughty and who has been nice. It also explains the rules...like don't touch your elf when you find him or his magic will disappear and Santa won't find out if you've been good! It's a sweet story and is wonderfully illustrated.

On your first night you read the story, name your elf, and put him on a shelf before bed (we left ours in his box up on the shelf).

During the night your elf will return to the North Pole and inform Santa if your kids have been naughty or nice, and then he returns to your house. However...elves can be mischevious...your elf may not got back to where you left him...he may find his own michief to get into (if finding your elf mishief to get into every night is too much of a commitment you could tell your kids that he may come back to the same spot some nights...or just incase you forget to do it one night).

 One commenter on Frugal Family Funs facebook page left this link which immediately hooked me...oh how fun! Such wonderful ideas...how do you choose which ones to do...and how do you come up with your own any better???

Stay tuned here as each day I will post about Elfies michievious adventures in our daily countdown to Christmas posts.

Some of you may see the Elf on the Shelf as another bit of commercialism tied to Christmas but me...I see many years of fun memories in our future with this new Christmas tradition.

After supper we got out the pattern blocks and had fun making some Christmas designs (the designs were downloaded from HERE).

Sometimes our pattern blocks end up being stacked :)

All in all...day 1 of our countdown to Christmas was a huge success and I LOVE our new Christmas tradition! Do you have a favourite Christmas tradition?

Advent Calendar : Countdown to Christmas

A couple days ago I posted a few wonderful ideas for advent calendars that every year I think about making but seem to leave it to the last minute. I really want to make one of these someday but I think my problem is that I have a hard time thinking about Christmas before December 1st and by that time it is too late.

Here is what I came up with

I got the idea from HERE. I like it because it was fairly simple and quick with my limited time and I had a way to make this easy activity even more easy.

Years ago I was a very active member on swap-bot. A site where people join swaps, make things pertaining to the swap, send them off to their partners and receive items back. I did a lot of matchbox swaps so I had a whole jar full of decorated matchboxes already.

I was wondering what I would do with all these when we move and this seemed like a worthy cause for these little pieces of art :)

So I emptied out all the contents of 24 matchboxes. I printed out a list of 24 family activities and cut them into strips.

I added a number to the bottom of each box and put the corresponding activity into the boxes.

Now they sit all filled with our family activities and little sticker treats in a little glass bowl waiting for December 1st.

My girls will take turns opening one each day. I chose to add 2 stickers to each box as well because I didn't want to focus on getting gifts or candies. I wanted to focus on the activities we will all do together as a family. However since the activities will be done for the most part after school, the little sticker is a small treat until it's time to do the activity.

Here is our 2011 activity list. Most are very affordable but there are a couple special days :)

1) Get out the Christmas books and music and play with Christmas Pattern blocks
2) Christmas sensory box and enjoy hot chocolate by the fire outside
3) Visit the North Pole
4) Decorate the Christmas tree and do family portraits
5) Decorate their bedroom door with life size elves
6) St Nicholas Day: Pictures with Santa (Free 5X7 Tuesdays)
7) Make Christmas cards and gift tags
8) Red, Green and White night (colour theme for dinner and nails)
9) Pizza night and Christmas Movie
10) Historic Stewart farm 
11) Peak of Christmas at Grouse Mountain
12) Make teacher gifts
13) Games night by the Christmas tree and make wrapping paper
14) Make gifts for family and friends
15) School concert and put together a charity box
16) Pizza night and Christmas movie
17) Beeswax candles and ornaments
18) Christmas bath by carols and candle light
19) Make Gingerbread houses
20) Take a drive to look for Christmas lights
21) Jinglebell bracelets and Rock around the Christmas tree
22) Bake cookies for Santa
23) Make our annual sausage rolls with daddy
24) Watch the night before Christmas and write letter to Santa

My girls usually get to open one present on Christmas Eve. Something small but that will keep them busy as we finish up last minute preparations and they always get new PJ's for all the Christmas morning pictures.

Every year we try to cut back on the consumerism that runs ramp-id at Christmas and we try to focus more on family time and making gifts or buying homemade gifts. Gifts that are special. I also recycle gifts and sometimes even buy second hand gifts. To me it is the thought that counts and if I can recycle something to someone that I know they will love, what is the point of buying something new?

This year I will be recycling the girls Christmas dresses as well. I have made that decision because their dresses from last year will still fit them both, they were only used once, and spending another couple hundred dollars on new dresses for Christmas day just doesn't make sense as we try to simplify life and get back to the basics. I must admit it is hard to walk by all the dresses on display...but I can do it!

How do you countdown to Christmas? Any special holiday traditions? As well as our calendar activities we will be doing a lot of Christmas Book + Craft = FUN activities and making ornaments so December should  follow the tradition of being a VERY busy month!