Old Style Christmas Preparations for Christmas 2013

whitesatin

I bought some nice Christmas velour (small) towels from Primark last year. Half the price of similar in M&S.

Re gifts for children with special needs. I used to teach children with severe learning difficulties and many of them liked to play with the large plastic drinks (or any) bottles which I would fill with themed items, floating in water. E.g. sand, shells, plastic fish etc. Add a bit of glitter or shiny paper to the water and seal the lid properly to avoid them taking the lid off to explore too closely. You can add food colour, small balls, anything really - lots of fun. To be played with under supervision, of course.

Of course there are also lots of nice tactile (or noisy) books around.

midnightraven3

whitesatin wrote: »

Nice ideas, thanks. Can you think of something to mix with the lavender to make it more seasonal? Lavender is always appreciated mind you. My little 4 year old grandaughter is addicted to the stuff and is always disappointed if things I make don't smell of it. LOL.

lemon balm
go noseying at peoples gardens if you dont have any, lots of people have it and dont even realize
it grows like wildfire and ANYONE will gladly give you a nice big clump of it
dry it and use that
it smells DIVINE:D

MaddyWaddy

What a lovely catch up on a Monday morning after a couple ofweeks off work! I get the weekly emails so was a good read.

I have just been and bought myself a notebook to track whatI have and what I still need to get. I also have one to keep me organised withthings I am planning on making myself, it will have shopping lists and thingsin there too.

I received my Autumn and Winter catalogue last week so washaving a browse through that for ideas … It also gave me chance to compareprices which was a bit of an eye opener!

I also love how the Americans trim up and I want to startsome traditions of my own this year so I will be making paperchains to go roundthe living room ceiling with some paper stars dangling from the ceiling. My mumloves doing the metallic shiny ceiling decorations with balloons which I personallydon’t like but it looks very festive. As children we used to have empty boxes wrappedin Christmas wrap filled with crisps and chocolates from the beginning ofDecember. I love the idea of making the whole house festive … I need to buysome scented oils off ebay so will purchase some spiced ones at the same time.

One of my luxury purchases is a wooden advent house for mydaughter … we are trying to get into healthier living though so will need ideasrather than chocolate.

Will continue to read with interest

whitesatin

Wanted to share this with you in case you are interested. Actually, I wanted to buy the remaining 9 that they have in stock but as that is unlikely........anyway, I will never light mine so it should last a while, LOL.

Received my John Lewis order of a Tree Centre Candle, Bronze in the post today (City Link). I paid £10 as it was reduced from £20 but was very impressed by the size and weight of this lovely centre piece. The only problem is that you have to pay for delivery if you buy less than £50 of stuff but you might be able to get it delivered to a local JL.

It is going up in the loft for a few months but I can't wait to get it out, which will probably be late autumn as it is an autumnal colour.

westcoastscot

Maddywaddy we have food allergies so only had a few doors with sweeties - in others we had puzzles and treasure hunts! Just little things when they were younger, like counting the legs on santa's reindeer, then moving onto making words out of the letters in "merry christmas", that sort of thing. Treasure hunts were just three or four clues moving around the house to find a colouring page, wordsearch, crossword, that sort of thing. Lots of fun!!

carlamarie_2

Maddywaddy u don't say how old ur daughter is, if she's older, would the drawers fit in little lipsticks, nail varnishes, hair clips and bracelets etc? Even face packs - age dependant.

Or you could get the small boxes of raisins and dried fruit, and fruit winders (do they still sell them?) if she's younger. You could also keep you eyes open for party bag items- little spinning tops, small packs of wax crayons etc.

My dd is 5 and I would do her a mix of what I have said and the suggestions westcoastscot has made.

clare64

Love this thread:T
I want to make some wheat bags as gifts. Is it cracked wheat that you use?. Also inlaws do not have a micro so what temp could you heat them in the oven?
Many thanks
Clarex

quidsy

Bit early for me, I usually start around end of August stocking up on fillers & sale gifts but this thread is great, full of excellent tips.

Last year my son & I made angels, stars, hearts & garlands from a £5 paper craft book, it was a 4 week project & by the end we had lots of lovely vintage style decorations, this year I plan to make popcorn & cranberry garlands to hang in the kitchen & collect pine cones & holly from the local park for free.

Own_My_Own

Hi, hope you don't think I am hijacking, but if anyone wants any extra ideas I have posted a lot of links on the first few pages of this thread.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4357703

I have sucribribed to this thread

Cannyquine

Claire, sorry you cannot warm them up in the oven! I think they'd catch fire.