12 Days of Christmas Books Advent Using Fabric Gift Bags

 I tried wrapping Christmas books for each day in December leading up to Christmas as a book advent.  Sure, kids love to pull off the paper, but I didn't like wasting all that paper and how much time it took to wrap the books.  I decided to create my own fabric gift bags to re-use each year. These are 'Sew' simple! I have very basic sewing skills. I'll try it if it has straight lines, no patterns and no pinning. These bags are pretty much like a little pillow case with a ribbon sewn onto the outside for tying.
The thing I love best about these books is that you can put 1 or more books inside for a surprise each day. Leave them under the tree for your children to open counting down the 12 days before Christmas (you could make 24 if you are really ambitious).

To see my instructions for the The 12 Days of Christmas Fabric Gift Bags, I shared them here:  Skip to My Lou. (originally posted Dec. 2014).

The bags can be used for a book advent (from books you already own or borrowed from the library or new gifts) or any other special gifts to count down to Christmas. Perfect for holiday gift giving to your children, family, friends or teachers.



DIY GIFT IDEA:

This Truffula Tree elastic bookmark would be an excellent gift. It was quick and simple enough for kids to make too.  They could make one as a gift for a teacher, librarian or a grandparent.

See how to make the bookmark here.

Don't forget to visit my 12 Days of Christmas gift bags over at Skip to My Lou.

Thanks for stopping by.  Take a look around obSEUSSed for more kid and DIY crafts.

10th day of Christmas Books: Fancy Festivities

Celebrating The Twelve Days of Christmas Books

On the 10th day of Christmas Books, obSEUSSed gave to me

10 Fancy Festivities

9 Animal Christmas Books

8 I Spy Christmas Tree Games

7 Santa Stories

6 Nativity Activities

5 Grinch Cookies

A Nutcracker

3 Mitten Trees

2 Snowman Earrings

and the Berenstain Bear Family.

If you haven't heard of Fancy Nancy by now you must either live under a rock, or you don't have a little girl in your house.  The children's book character, Fancy Nancy, loves to turn the ordinary into extraordinary.  

Here we are at our local library storytime Fancy Nancy Party.  They made fancy masks, gave everyone a bling necklace, had fancy cookies and lemonade in tea cups, had the girls do a fashion walk down a red carpet and dance to fancy music on the stage.

Make sure to add glitter and bling to your holiday decorations and festivities this season just like Fancy Nancy's Splendiferous Christmas.  Nancy says splendiferous is the only word that "describes how magnificent, joyous and sparkly Christmas morning is."  She wants Christmas to be fancy with a special tree topper but when things go wrong her grandpa teaches her how to "make eggnog out of broken eggs."

Fancy Nancy Splendiferous Christmas

The Fancy Nancy book series by Jane O'Conner, illustrated by Robin Glasser, helps introduce new 'fancy' vocabulary to young readers. My 7 yr old and I have loved this series for 4 years. The original hard backs are a little hard for her to read because the font is too fancy but all the easy reader books have been perfect for her.


The Fancy Nancy collection seems to be growing every month with new books popping up every time I go to the store. We are adding Fancy Nancy and the Fabulous Fashion Boutique, The Delectable Cupcake and My Family History to our home library this Christmas.

We bought the cupcake one from our school book fair the fashion boutique from Amazon online after Thanksgiving and the Family History one from our local Barnes and Nobel. I've also seen them in our Scholastic book order, at Target and Wal-mart - I told you they are everywhere.

I'm so excited for the family history one because our family does a lot of research and it introduces some great vocab for young readers, like 'ancestors'.

I am also excited for 'The Delectable Cupcake' as I am crazy about cupcakes, see the Cupcake Conference.

Wishing you a Spendiferous Christmas!
 
Here are some more Fancy Nancy items you can click on for more details.

8th Day of Christmas Books: I Spy Christmas Tree Games

Celebrating The Twelve Days of Christmas Books

On the 8th day of Christmas Books, obSEUSSed gave to me

8 I Spy Christmas Tree Games

7 Santa Stories

6 Nativity Activities

5 Grinch Cookies

A Nutcracker

3 Mitten Trees

2 Snowman Earrings

and the Berenstain Bear Family.

Do you see what I see? 

Family Fun Activities:

I SPY CHRISTMAS TREE GAME

Sit with your child and look at your tree together. Describe ornaments to see if they can find it. "I spy a penguin, or I spy a santa on a sleigh." Take turns and try to be very descriptive with colors, shapes or objects they are not familiar with.

CHRISTMAS PICKLE

Have you heard of the Christmas Pickle? It is a old German tradition, read more about it here.

We have a Christmas tradition that whoever finds the pickle ornament first on Christmas Eve, gets to open the first present.  One year my mom couldn't find the ornament so she hung a real pickle for my kids to find (see picture below). I do not recommend doing that.  You can buy an ornament like the one below or select another special ornament of yours to be the hidden one. Or print the free one I designed and cut it out to hide it. 

Free Printable Pickle Ornament to hide



I SPY CHRISTMAS BOOKS:

I Spy Books are a favorite around our house.  The Christmas I Spy books keep our kids entertained for hours. They especially like searching for the Seymour wooden boy in the 'Can You See What I See' book by Walter Wick. They also love the Look-A-Like series.

Linking to Tip Me Tuesday at Tip Junkie

6th Day of Christmas Books: Nativity Activities

Celebrating The Twelve Days of Christmas Books

On the 6th day of Christmas Books, obSEUSSed gave to me

6 Nativity Activities (say that quickly 6 times)

5 Grinch Cookies

A Nutcracker

3 Mitten Trees

2 Snowman Earrings

and the Berenstain Bear Family.

Our family enjoys books and activities about the Nativity during the Christmas Season. After all, it is the Reason for the Season. 
I created this wall hanging Advent Calendar with pockets that hold little 1 inch ornaments. The kids take turns adding an ornament to the tree each night before bed.
I found the ornaments, mini 2-foot tree and tree skirt at Big Lots. The first 12 ornaments are a festive set with Santa, snowflakes, snowmen and more. The ornaments I put in the last 12 pockets are from the Nativity so as we get closer to Christmas we discuss each figure and what they represent. The baby Jesus ornament is in the 25th day pocket so we can add it to the tree on His birthday and remember Him.

I hand stiched the numbers onto felt with embroidery thread, then I sewed the pockets on using an applique stitch. I keep the ornaments in the little box after Christmas.

FAMILY FUN ACTIVITY:

We try to act out the nativity on Christmas Eve as we read the story from the Bible. We use towels on our heads for a quick costume, although my mother-in-law just bought some simple animal costumes from Oriental Trading for us to use this year.

We also love the Little People Nativity set so the kids have a hands on activity to retell the story. (See below with books.)

BOOKS:

Here are some great Nativity books that we have in our collection.

5th Day of Christmas Books: Grinch Cookie Recipe

Celebrating The Twelve Days of Christmas Books

On the 5th day of Christmas Books, obSEUSSed gave to me

5 Grinch Cookies

A Nutcracker

3 Mitten Trees

2 Snowman Earrings

and the Berenstain Bear Family.

I went to a Cookie exchange party hosted by the gracious Jen of Tatertots and Jello. Of course I wanted to make something festive so I made Mount Crumpit Melt-a-ways.  This is a melt-a-way butter cookie recipe from my husband's family, I just re-named it. And, I'll admit, my husband baked the cookies. His family are the best bakers. I did make the frosting, only after calling him for advice while in the process. It really isn't very hard, I'm just not the best cook.  They taste delicious and Melt in your mouth, thus the name.

Grinch Christmas Cookies Recipe, Free Printable

Remember to Read How the Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr. Seuss for the Twelve Days of Christmas Books.

See Amazon disclosure on my 'About' page.

Linking to:

Pleasant Home's Cookie Exchange Party

3rd Day of Christmas Books: Mitten Tree

On the third day of Christmas Books, obSEUSSed gave to me

3 Mitten Trees

 2 Snowman Earrings and

the Berenstain Bear Family

You may ask, What is a Mitten Tree?  It is similar to an Angel Tree or Giving Tree at Christmas time to help collect donations for those in need. It is inspired by the book The Mitten Tree by Candace Christensen (see below).  Here is our Mitten Tree just getting started. I had a box to collect blankets, sheets and jackets. We actually had 3 Mitten Trees set up in different rooms to let the kids decorate as they brought donations.  

I read the book, The Mitten Tree, to the children at church after Thanksgiving.

We talked about giving secret service, like the woman in the book who would knit mittens and leave them on the tree by the bus stop to surprise the children leaving for school each morning.

We had several moms and women in our neighborhood that hand-knit mittens like the woman in the book. Other kids saved their money and bought knit mittens at the store. You can find 2 pair for $1 at the dollar store and Target.  The kids would each tell an act of kindness as they put a donation on the tree. 

I know that serving others has brought joy to my life and I hope to instill that in our children.

I sent home flyers to remind the families to look for a specific list of new or like-new items needed by our local homeless shelter.  You can use this FREE graphic I created to customize it for your own event.

You can right click on it, copy it, paste it in Word, adjust the size, then add a text box over it (format it to no line and no fill) to add your own words, a list of needed items and dates of the donation drive.

Don't forget to enter the giveaway for an annual family pass to Thanksgiving Point in Utah from ObSEUSSed. Contest ends Friday at midnight. Click here for details.



First Day of Christmas with Berenstain Bears

The 12 Days of Christmas Books:
I'm going to attempt to share our favorite Christmas books for the Twelve Days of Christmas. We have 3 huge baskets of them so I'll try to share the classics.

For the First Day of Christmas ObSEUSSed gave to me:
The Berenstain Bear Family

Our 5 and 7 year olds love Berenstain Bears right now. They have a variety of Christmas books.

One of the classics we keep out all year is The Bears' Christmas with lots of fun rhyming. It is part of the Dr. Seuss Beginning Reader collection and is the same size as all the Dr. Seuss hardbound book series.

We just picked up the Berenstain Bears Trim the Tree the other night at Barnes and Noble during Grinch night. The one we got has lift-the-flaps so the kids are loving it.
We also like the Joy of Giving because it helps our kids realize that giving to others can bring them happiness during Christmas too.

I love how all the Berenstain Bears books have morals to the stories. We are on a quest to collect any we find at used book stores. We often find them for 50 cents. I love the newer print ones too that you can grab at the store for under $5.00. Check your library for copies first. Then if you like them shop at your local bookstore or online for a copy. Here are some you might enjoy.



If you live in Utah, remember to enter to win a family pass to Thanksgiving Point from ObSEUSSed by clicking here for more details.

Merry Grinchmas!

Merry Grinchmas!

ObSEUSSed's Family

With a blog called ObSEUSSed, I couldn’t go through this season without mentioning the Grinch. We got to take pictures with the Grinch this year at my daughter’s school fundraiser. Barnes & Nobel donated a percentage of their profits to their school while the school provided Grinch and Dr. Seuss themed activities. The kids sang carols, went on a Dr. Seuss scavenger hunt around the store, made whimsical Who hats, listened to their principal read Dr. Seuss stories and took pics with the Grinch.

 

One of our favorite holiday traditions is reading "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" to our kids and watching the movie. I love discussing the message of the story with my kids.
Play "How the Grinch Saved Christmas" game at Seussville.com
Grab the book or the movie at your local library or online (Amazon disclosure on About page.)



  

Seuss Landing Grinch

Seuss Landing Grinch



Use ornaments and candy as decor. Drip icing off side for icicles.

We went to Grandma’s house last week to decorate gingerbread (graham cracker) houses. She was so thoughtful and found Grinch ornaments for me to use on our houses. I plan to pull them off to use again next year as I work on creating a Whoville Christmas Village. (I’m so excited collecting things to create this from scratch.)



 Graham Cracker Houses have been a tradition for our family since I was a little girl. We would make extra and take them to neighbors.

Graham Cracker House Tips:

• Use a dull knife to saw the graham crackers into the shapes you need. Saw one square in half diagonally to create the triangles on the top of house. Then use all squares or all long rectangles (the whole graham cracker) for creating your sides and roof.
• Face candy canes together to create a heart or a door. See the roof on mine.
• Drip Icing off the roof to create icicles.
• Use a pie tin for easy transportation and don't forget to decorate the yard. Coconut looks nice as snow.
• Pick up decorative candy or ornaments at the dollar store to add to your house.
• Don’t try to use store bought canned frosting for these- they will not stay together. Here is the recipe my mom always makes that is nice and soft to start with but dries or sets up quickly.

Use a Pie tin. Let your kids get creative.

ROYAL ICING
(Also known as 7 minute icing or frosting)

3 egg whites (room temp)

4 cups powdered sugar

 ½ teaspoon cream of tartar

Beat all ingredients at high speed for 7 to 10 minutes. (Easy if you have a Kitchen Aid.)

This icing is for putting things together such as gingerbread houses and sugar molds. It dries hard and fast. You need to keep it covered with a wet cloth or a tight fitting lid when not being used. It will keep several days in the refrigerator but you should let it come to room temperature before using. Re-beating will not restore texture. Yields about 2 ½ cups icing.

If you want colored icing, put a dab of Wilton cake color paste on a toothpick and run through a cup of the icing. Stir it good. Keep adding a drop at a time until you get the desired color you desire.

Note: You can use meringue powder instead of egg whites.





Our Cindy Lou Who when she was two.

 You Can Create your own Who at Seussville.com and play many more games.

Remember "Maybe Christmas doesn't come from a store. Maybe Christmas...perhaps...means a little bit more!" from The Grinch Who Stole Christmas by Dr. Seuss.



GIVEAWAY UPDATE:  I attended a Holiday Preview at Thanksgiving Point in Lehi, Utah last week and am giving away a 1-year family membership. Click here for details to enter.

Linking to:

 Somewhat Simple's Strut Your Stuff Thursday and Winter Holidays Link Party

Tatertots and Jello, Weekend Wrap-up Party