If you’re wary of your toddler touching the Christmas ornaments or other family heirloom decorations, here are 5 activities that are fun, engage all the senses and are easy for parents to set up amidst the holiday bustle. Turn up the holiday music and let the fun begin!
1. Create holiday-themed sensory bins
Fill plastic bins with holiday-themed objects like sprinkles, dyed rice, or pom poms and tuck in small figurines/other holiday goodies for the kids to discover. Add in a peppermint scent to engage the sense of smell as well.
2. Decorate Cookies
This is a main staple of the holiday season, but there’s a way to make it even easier for both you and your child. Instead of baking cookies, buy pre-made sugar cookies and provide the icing and toppings. Get a few icing colors and teach them how mixing red and white makes pink etc. Bonus: since you don’t have to wait for the cookies to bake and cool, that leaves more time for decorating and eating them!
3. Deck the Windows
If you’re hesitant for your toddler to go near the Christmas tree, put them in charge of the windows. Buy window clings and let them go to town on decking those windows out.
4. Holiday Crafts
Making a holiday craft to display is always a favorite activity. We like to buy Christmas-time shapes and add stickers, googly eyes and other items. Part of the fun is letting your toddler help pick out the stickers they want to use. The mess, the cost and the time spent on this craft is minimal. Michaels also sells pre-made kits with foam shapes and matching stickers, making it even easier to create a holiday craft with your little one.
5. Make Reindeer Food
One of our favorite traditions is to make Reindeer Food. Many families leave carrots with their cookies, but those reindeers get restless while Santa is inside! Give them something to munch on while they wait for their owner to come back to the sleigh. We put ours in a mason jar that we decorate and label. On Christmas Eve, we head out to the driveway and sprinkle some for Rudolph and his friends.
Ingredients:
- Oats
- Crushed potato chips
- Cocoa
- Raisins
- Christmas sprinkles
- A touch of holiday glitter so the reindeer can spot the food from the sky.
What are some of your favorite holiday activities with your kids? Pinterest boards are fun to look at, but I would love to hear from you and about your traditions!
