Do You Want to Build a Snow....Dog?!

Christmas Party Games

Every year my family and my sister's family comes together to decorate my mom's Christmas tree.  This has been a tradition of ours since the first year I moved away from home.  When our kids were little they loved it, but as they have gotten older their enthusiasm in it is not as great as it once was.  Last year we started a new tradition and turned the whole "Christmas Tree Trimming" night into a fun Christmas party and everyone loves it!!! We still have our usual party foods and decorate mam maw's tree, but now we have added fun Christmas games and end the night with Dirty Santa.  If you are not familiar with what Dirty Santa is, don't worry, it is nothing dirty.  Just a fun way to exchange Christmas gifts.  This does not take the place of the regular gifts we give to each other for Christmas, it's just an early fun gift giving game! 

Here are the games (and their descriptions) we played this year.

HUMDINGER

I love this game!  If you have ever played Cranium you know how much fun and laughter this game can bring.  A person hums and everyone else has to guess the song.  Of course for a Christmas party you need Christmas songs.  Here are the one's we used.  You can use your favorite holiday songs and make your own list!

Angels We Have Heard on High

Frosty the Snowman

Joy to the World

Grandma Got Ran Over by a Reindeer

Baby It's Cold Outside

Deck the Halls

Go Tell It on the Mountain

I'll be Home for Christmas

Silent Night

Carol of the Bells

Jingle Bell Rock

Winter Wonderland

The First Noel

O Come all ye Faithful

We Wish you a Merry Christmas

Feliz Navidad

Hark the Harold Angels Sing

Away in the Manger

The 12 Days of Christmas

I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus

O Little Town of Bethlehem

Here Comes Santa Claus

Mary Did You Know

Do You Hear What I Hear

CHRISTMAS CATCHPHRASE

If you are familiar with Heads Up, the super fun tablet app, then you will know how to play this game.  A person has a phrase and has to try to get the players to guess the phrase by either acting it out or giving clues.  For example, if your phrase is Three Wise Men your clue could be:  "more than two really smart dudes".  Here is the list of phrases that we used.

Three Wise Men

Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer

The Grinch

Elf

Wrapping Presents

Caroling

Snow Angels

Mary and Joseph

Sleigh

Christmas Lights

Jingle Bells

Christmas Shopping

Little Drummer Boy

It's a Wonderful Life

Christmas with the Kranks

Frosty the Snowman

Ornaments

Partridge in a Pear Tree

Silver Bells

White Christmas

Gold, Myrrh and Frankincense

String Popcorn

CHRISTMAS ARTIST

See who is the most artistic in your family by giving them this fun drawing challenge.  I gave each person a sturdy piece of cardboard and a pen.  Each person then put the cardboard on top of their head and followed my directions.  

1.   Draw a line for the floor

2.  Draw a Christmas tree

3.  Add decorations

4.  Draw a star on top of the tree

5.  Draw a fireplace with a mantel next to the tree

6.  Draw a stocking hanging from the mantel

7.  Draw a present below the tree

Then we graded them

2 points if tree touches the floor

2 points if stocking is touching the mantel

1 point if star touches the tree

1 point if the star is above the tree

1 point for every ornament on the tree

1 point if your fireplace does not touch the tree because that would be a fire hazard. ;)

2 points if present is under the tree

There are several variations of this game as well and last year we played it a little differently.  We closed our eyes and did not do it on top of our head and we drew snowmen instead.  Just use your imagination!

HUMAN CHRISTMAS TREE

We got a lot of laughs out of this game.  We split up into two groups and each group was given a roll of green crepe paper, a package of red garland, candy canes, various colors of constructions paper, scissors and tape.  Each team had to choose one team member to be "the tree" and the other team members trimmed the tree!  Check out the pictures below to see how this turned out!

STOCKING SUPRISE

All you need for this one is a stocking and stocking stuffers.  After I put the objects in the stocking I pinned it closed and each person had to feel and try to guess what was in the stocking.  Here are the items I used, but you can use anything you have around the house.

ornament

coaster

pinecone

candy cane

jingle bell

pencil sharpener

spool of thread

yo-yo

Christmas bow

snowman figurine

bag of marbles

DIRTY SANTA

There are several variations of this game, but for our family we set a $5.00 price limit.  We all purchase and wrap our gift, but we do not include a name tag.  Then we put the gifts in the middle of the room and each person draws a number.  The first person picks a gift from the pile, the person with the second number can either pick a gift from the pile or take person #1's gift, and that goes on until every number has gone and we keep stealing until the last gift is finally chosen.   After that we go back to the person with number 1 and they open their gift and the person who purchased it lets them know it is from them....so forth and so on.  The only rules we have is that you cannot choose your own gift and you cannot have a tug of war with a gift. example - same two people taking back and forth from each other, you can however get the same gift back, but you can't take it back immediately.   I know some people choose to open the gifts and then steal them, but for our family we decided to wait until the end to open.  I have played it both ways and it is equally as fun!  

Here are a few pictures from our night of Christmas fun!

Embracing the Season

No winter blues here! The U.S. has been hit hard this winter. Snow, ice, frigid temperatures. A lot of people are counting down the days till spring. Spring and summer are my favorites, but I am not quite ready to push winter out the door, not yet anyway.

There is something about the possibility of getting snow that really excites me. I guess it brings out the kid in me. I love the idea of being snowed in. I love the relaxed pace of winter. I love the the chance to do things I don't really do in the summer, like scrapbook, sew, and all things crafty. I love having time to blog hop. I love hot cocoa. I love listening to Dakota play his guitar. I love watching Bethany do crazy creative projects (her latest was a cape and mask for our dog, now known as Daisy the Wonder Dog), I love the way the snow makes everything look so beautiful and warm.  Yes, warm. Even though the snow is cold, and we bundle up to go out in it, when I look out my window at the snow covered earth, I feel warm inside.

So, even though spring is just around the corner, and I will love the green grass, the beautiful flowers, the warmer temperatures.... today I am perfectly content with my winter wonderland.

Snow Happy!!

I am NOT the kind of mom who has hot chocolate waiting when the kids come in from playing in the snow.

 

 I AM the kind of mom who fixes the hot chocolate, puts it in an insulated pitcher, and then.....

....goes out and plays in the snow too!

and then we came in and warmed up with our already ready hot chocolate. :)

Happy New Year

Remember, true happiness does not come from how much we have, how we look, or by how many friends we have. It comes from God. "Happy is that people, whose God is the LORD."  Psalms 144:15 

May you all have a  Happy New Year!!

Praying in the New Year

No matter where I spend New Year's Eve, there is one thing, a tradition, that we always try to do.  Pray out the old year and pray the new year in.  My mom and dad are the two that started the tradition when I was just a young girl.  Now I do it with my kids and hopefully one day they will do it with their children. 


We still hoop and holler and make a lot of noise, but first we pray.  Why?  Because He is the God of my yesterdays, He is the God of my today, and He is the God of my tomorrows. What better way to start the New Year than with the One I love most.  It is because of Him that I am blessed to have another year.  It is because of my faith in Him that I know that whatever the new year brings He will see me through.  In the good times and in the bad times, at the end of the year and at the beginning of the year, I will say blessed be the name of the Lord and thank Him for His goodness to me, his unworthy servant.

The Day After

The tree is down, the decorations are put away, everything is back in its place...well, almost.   I know most people keep up their tree till the New Year.  Not me.  I've always taken it down the day after Christmas.  So has my mom, so maybe it's a family thing.  I love having everything put away and in it's proper place so I can enjoy some time with my kids.  Remember I'm a homeschool mom so it's my Christmas break too.  For me, the sooner I get the tree down and everything put away, the sooner I can sit back, relax and enjoy some family time.

After Christmas is over I get some boxes and make two stacks of new gifts.  Bethany's stack and Dakota's stack.  Then throughout the next week I take time to look at their new things individually with each of them.  After each item is looked at/played with by mom and kid it then gets put in it's place.  This is something I've always done.  We do it on Birthday's too.  The kids look forward to it and so do I.  It used to consist of playing hotwheels and remote control cars with Dakota and playing barbies and baby dolls with Bethany.  Now that they are getting older it consists of looking at books, watching movies, and playing video games. 

So this year for Dakota we will be watching his new Crabb Family dvd together, looking and discussing several books including a book on humility and George Bush's Decision Points.  He got a really neat sportsman camouflage Bible that I am thoroughly convinced that every sportsman should have.  It's even waterproof, supposedly even floats!  He also got several things for hunting so we will look at those together and hopefully he'll get to use some of it next deer season.  But mostly we will be looking at pictures.  He takes really good pictures of nature and he has photography blog that you can check out here.  His grandmother got him a new tripod, he got some camera cleaning supplies and his most favorite thing...Photoshop!  Here's an  example of some of the fun stuff he can now do.

With Bethany we will be looking at some books.  She loves the Life of Faith books and this Christmas she completed her collection. She was very excited about that!  She also got several Focus on the Family Radio Theatre productions.  We are almost finished listening to Anne of Green Gables then we'll start on Little Women or perhaps The Secret Garden which she received from her great grandma.  She also got the Anne of Green Gables dvd set and some paper dolls.  She loves paper dolls and has quite a collection.  One thing she'll have to wait to try out is her new sweep net.   This year in Science she has been studying insects and the one and only thing she really asked for this year was a sweep net so she could catch all kinds of bugs and butterflies.   We'll have to wait for spring on that.  Here's a picture of her opening up her Anne of Green Gables Focus on the Family from her Aunt Shelley.

As a family we'll be watching I Love Lucy!  We now have seasons 1 & 2 and have already shared several laughs while piled in bed together.  Also we'll try to solve some Brain Teasers together while playing Professor Layton and the Curious Village on the Nintendo ds.

Then when I am all done with that, I hope to have some time to myself so I can read.  I got several new books for Christmas.  My mom got me Serendipity by Cathy Marie Hake and my sweet Bethany got me A Guide to Deaf Ministry and Celebrating the Christian Year, both books that I really wanted.  

I can't end without mentioning the sweet gift that Dakota got for me.  He took a beautiful picture of a pink rose with water droplets on it and then he wrote a poem for me and printed it on the picture and gave me the framed work of art.  Needless to say I teared up when I read the poem.  It is a gift I will treasure forever.

Snow much Fun!!!

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow! And it has! We have had plenty of snow this year for sled riding, snowman building and any other snow time fun you can think up. One special treat my family likes is snow cream. All you need is:
1 cup milk
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
large bowl of snow (about 3 quarts)

Blend milk, sugar and vanilla. Stir in enough snow to make snow cream into an ice cream consistency.

There are many variations for snow cream. For example you can substitute canned cream or whipping cream instead of the milk for a heavier flavor. You could add Nestles Quik or cocoa for a chocolate snowcream. You could add a beaten egg for a nog taste. Eat it plain or add your favorite toppings - you know your family's tastes.

The most important thing is to ALWAYS - ALWAYS make sure the snow is clean. It takes at least one to two hours for snow to clean the pollutants from the air, then use only snow that has fallen after that first cleansing snow. It also goes without saying(but I will anyway), make sure you don't collect the snow where animals have been. Cleanliness first. Stress that with the kids, because this is a treat even the younger ones can make for the whole family.

Here are some pictures of the snow family that me and Bethany made this year.