When my kids were small we started doing our own Charlie Brown Christmas Tree. We would go cut a small tree the leaves had fallen from, so it was bare limbs. We’d add all of our decorations and it turned out really nice. My kids loved it because they could “see” all of the ornaments.

Now it seems that they actually make a Charlie Brown Christmas Tree that you can buy. How cool is that?

Here’s a pic of it, just click the image to find out the details. It’s a great bargain for under $20.

Isn’t it just adorable? I love this little Charlie Brown Christmas Tree!

You want to create a gorgeous tree to delight friends and family. Planning the perfect tree will take time, and often it takes several years to get all of the decorations you like. You can use family heirloom ornaments for a traditional tree, or you can do something completely different and unique.

Christmas trees come in all shapes and sizes. You can even get white trees, silver trees and gold trees. You don’t have to settle for a boring old green tree if you don’t want to. If you want to keep your traditional green tree with all of your collected ornaments, why not consider using a smaller tree in another room.

This tree can be put in the dining room or the den. You can get a white tree and use one color of ornaments and lights, like red or blue. You can mix and match, use glass balls and bows, or drape it with silver bells. The possibilities are endless. A white tree can add a very elegant touch to your Christmas decorations.

No matter what you decide for Christmas tree decorations this holiday season, be sure to take a lot of pictures of friends and family gathered around it.

You can also use Christmas dinnerware sets as part of your decorations. You simply keep the table set with a nice Christmas tablecloth or runner, crystal wine flutes or goblets and Christmas china.

When it’s time to eat and you’re not going to use the china for the meal, just remove it from the table and as soon as the meal is cleared away, then reset it. It takes a bit of extra work but as a result, you have a holiday table that has a completed look. You’ll find that many magazines often depict pictures of a table already set. Those tables aren’t always just set that way for the photo shoot. They stay like that throughout the holiday season. This is exceptionally nice if you have a formal dining room, or a dining room set apart from the kitchen.

If you don’t have a set of Christmas china, this is a good year to ask for it so future Christmas gatherings have an elegant touch. China dishes are made of the highest quality porcelain, making it more expensive than everyday use dishes, which is why you may want to ask for it as a special Christmas gift.

Setting a table with china shows the effort the host or hostess went through to make it beautiful for the guests. Having special dinnerware is a sign of hospitality to show your guest how special they are and how much the holiday means to you.

The holidays are a special event and you don’t want to set the table using the same dishes you use all year long. You want to make everything about your holiday decor add that sparkle, that ‘something extra’ that’s found in the magic of Christmas.

Major companies are always creating designs for Christmas as well as keeping in stock their traditional Christmas designs. Of course, if you don’t like designs on your Christmas dinnerware, you can still have elegance by choosing one of the many patterns that feature a simple gold or silver circle around the dinnerware.

There are a few people who will purchase gorgeous sets of Christmas china and then unfortunately won’t use it. They keep it put up out of reach and often out of sight ‘in case’ something happens to it.

There’s no beauty in not using things that bring us pleasure. Life is not meant to be lived packed away in a box or in a cabinet. You’ll rob yourself of many priceless memories by not using the best you have in life.

Go ahead and celebrate the holidays with special Christmas china. You’re worth it and so are your friends and family. No matter what holiday dinnerware you pick out, it’ll help to make your holiday one to remember.

Don’t forget the Christmas table decorations either. There are many gorgeous table cloths, table runners and beautiful centerpieces available. Be sure to add special accents like napkin rings and drink coasters.

With these elegant Christmas decorating ideas below, you can have the kind of décor you’ve always wanted. Elegance equals unity. This is where many people go wrong when decorating for Christmas. They simply use too many colors – and while that might turn out to be eye catching, it’s distracting and busy.

You want the colors to work together and cool colors are always more elegant than warmer ones. For example, red and green decorations, while traditional Christmas colors, when placed together, don’t project an air of elegance.

The top two choices for elegant color are gold or white or gold and white together. You need to go with those colors throughout your home – one smooth color scheme. It may seem like white won’t look very inviting or seem very much like Christmas, but wait until you have it all together and you’ll be amazed.

On your walkway outside, use white luminaries along the walkway and leading up to the front steps or porch.  For elegance in electric lighting, never pick the bigger lights. Opt for the smaller ones inside – and yes, even outside your home.

Have you ever noticed how some restaurants use those tiny white Christmas lights all year round? That’s because those lights project an elegant dining experience. When you’re placing lights on your tree, use the smaller lights and use as many strands as your tree can comfortably hold.

Instead of choosing traditional poinsettias as your flower to decorate with, choose dozens of white roses and put them in delicate glass vases throughout your home. You can even throw a red rose or two in the mix for a splash of color. For a table centerpiece, place white pillar candles on a mirror base. Cover the edges of the base with gold or white ribbon.

Decorate the corners of the rooms with different wrapped gifts. Make sure the gifts are wrapped in gold paper and tied with white ribbon bows or do the opposite. Wrap the gifts in white paper and use gold ribbon to form the bows.

Take a collection of Christmas balls in white (or gold if you’re working with two colors) and place them in a large, heavy glass bowl. Place the bowl in the center of your coffee table.

Replace all of the different colored guest towels in each of your bathrooms with thick white ones. Lay a small hand towel beside each sink and place a gold ribbon around the middle of it.

When it’s time to serve the meal, serve the food on only white dishes or gold ones. If you use place cards, use white cards with gold calligraphy writing. When you’re finished with your Christmas decorating, your home will have that elegance you’ve been striving to achieve.

Santa Ornaments: This makes a great little gift for kids to make and give their friends or teachers too. Pick up large plastic ornaments at the craft store. These ornaments will open for you to put items inside.

Open the ornament and fill it with peppermints. Secure it closed again. Using a medium sized wooden ball, glue on jiggly eyes. Once the eyes are set, glue the wooden ball onto the top the plastic ornament.

Next, add cotton hair for the head, mustache and beard. Glue a red felt ‘hat’ on top of the hair. At the base of the ornament, glue a long piece of black felt for Santa’s belt. Glue the front bottom of the ornament to a thin wooden heart that’s been painted black. The curves in the heart will be Santa’s feet.

Christmas Placemat Crafts: Using recycled Christmas cards, tear off the backs where the writing is. You’ll need about three regular sized Christmas cards to make each placemat.

Have the kids glue the cards decoration side up down on colored construction paper. When the glue dries, cover the craft front and back with clear contact paper, making sure there are no open ends or gaps. Kids love setting their plats on their own special Christmas place mat.

Christmas Countdown Chains: For this popular craft, you’ll need red and green construction paper cut into thin, even strips. The kids can decorate the paper strips with Christmas writing and glitter glue.

Form the strips into connecting circles and glue each one closed. Once the glue is dry, hang the circle within easy reach of the child. Each day that passes until Christmas, the kids get to tear off one of the links of the chain.

Cookie Cutter Ornaments: To do this craft, you’ll need an assortment of cookie cutters in various holiday shapes. The ones that work the best are snowmen, Santa, trees and bell shapes.

Place each cookie cutter on colored construction paper. Trace around it. Cut it out. Have the kids decorate each cut out with glitter and mini pom-poms for Christmas balls on the tree.

For the snowmen, use mini black pom-poms for his buttons. You can use jiggly eyes on the snowmen and Santa. Once each ornament is finished, use a hole puncher to punch a hole at the top. Thread thin ribbon through the hole and let the kids hang their special ornament from the tree.

Candy Cane Reindeer: This craft is an oldie but a favorite among children. All you need are candy canes, jiggly eyes, pipe cleaners, mini pom-poms and glue. At the top of the candy cane, glue a pipe cleaner, twisting it into the shape of antlers. Glue jiggly eyes on either side of the reindeer ‘head’ and add the nose to the end of the candy cane.

Try to have plenty of craft ideas they can work on several days a week before Christmas arrives. This will not only keep them busy and excited, but it’s a fun family project too.

Some games are age related so that children can have a great time at parties where adults can enjoy themselves, too. But almost any age group can have a lot of fun with these ideas.

Here are some Christmas party games that are always crowd-pleasing:

Speedy Unwrapping: This game will take some preparation and needs to be done ahead of time.

Simply take a series of boxes, small, medium and large. Wrap the smallest box the way you would wrap a regular gift. Place it inside the medium box. Wrap the medium box so that it’s tougher to unwrap than the smaller one.

Now place the medium box down into the larger box. Wrap the larger box with layers of wrapping paper and use tough tape, like box tape or duct tape. Divide the party attendees into two groups.

Each member has exactly thirty seconds each to try and unwrap the box. At the end of the time limit, the team with the box or boxes that’s most unwrapped wins. Make sure you have a prize for the winning team members.

Or you can reverse that and have the largest box as the easiest one to unwrap.

Racing Wrapper: This one is opposite of unwrapping presents. Instead, several contestants race the clock to see who can wrap their present the fastest and the neatest. You’ll want roughly the same sized box for each contestant.
You can also have this broken down into age groups. Smaller children would get a longer time to race the clock, teens would get less than that and adults will have to whiz through it.
Tip: The same boxes can be used in each event so you don’t have to stock up on a ton of boxes.

Ornament Relay: This one has to be played outside or in a large room indoor (this one is great for any church Christmas parties). Divide the people into two even teams. Pick one person from each team to be the starter.

The starter has to pile his or her hands full of round, plastic Christmas balls and run to his or her team member to transfer the balls. The recipient then runs back to the home base (a large bucket or tin tub) to deposit the balls, then runs back.

The next person then has to run to the home base, gather all the balls and run back with them.

Any balls that the runner accidentally loses must be recovered before he or she can continue on the race.

Christmas Charades: For a twist on a favorite Christmas party game, use familiar Christmas events as the charade. Use events such as stuffing the turkey, decorating the tree, wrapping gifts etc. If you’re going to have a party for children and need games suited to their age level, choose from among these fun games:

Mystery Stocking: Take a large stocking and put several Christmas related items suitable for a child inside. Make sure the top of the stocking is fastened securely. Pass the stocking around and let each child have a few minutes to feel it. Then have them write down what they think is inside (or tell you if they’re too young). The child with the closest guess wins the stocking.

Word Formation: Have sheets of paper for each child. At the top of the paper, write the words ‘Merry Christmas’ or ‘Happy Holidays.’ The object is to write as many words as possible using only the letters at the top of the page. Give a five minute time limit.

Help Santa Pack the Sleigh: This is just like “Pin the Tail on the Donkey” except you have the children help Santa pack his sleigh for Christmas delivery.

Tape a sleigh to the wall. Give each child a paper ‘present’-something you might find in Santa’s sleigh. Blindfold each participant on his or her turn and have them try and pin the present inside the sleigh. The helper who packs the sleigh the best is the winner, meaning whoever is closest to the “target” wins.

Hopefully these suggestions has given you other ideas for Christmas party games as well.

What Do You Get With The Lego Star Wars Advent Calendar?

* Advent calendar box/ stand with Star Wars theme
* 24 windows with Lego gifts
* 8 mini figures (including Yoda dressed as Santa Claus)
* X-wing Starfighter model
* Mini Millennium Falcon
* 266 pieces total

How Does The Lego Star Wars Advent Calendar Work?

The premise behind this Lego advent calendar is the same as all other advent calendars. The lego pieces are divided between 24 sealed windows, one for each day before Christmas. Every day your child can open up a new window and get a new Star Wars-themed Lego model.

Most of the models are extremely easy to assemble, or are already assembled, so no instructions are necessary. There’s simply a small image of the finished model on the inside of the window once your child has opened it up.

When your child has opened up all 24 windows they’ll have an excellent collection of Star Wars-themed Lego models and figures to play with. These will take them well beyond Christmas, and can be added to their existing Lego collection.

Should You Buy This Lego Advent Calendar For Your Child?

Priced at around $40-$50, this is going to cost a little more than your standard advent calendar. However, as all parents who have bought Lego before will realize, this is actually good value for a themed set that’ll provide models that last way beyond the advent period.

Remember, Lego comes with many small parts that present a choking hazard, so isn’t suitable for children under three years of age. The manufacturer recommends this toy for any kids aged between 3 and 14, but in truth it’ll appeal to anyone who likes Lego. These sets are very collectible, and there may even be an adult in your life who would enjoy receiving this as a special pre-Christmas gift!

Anyone who knows Lego already knows the quality of their product. You can’t really go wrong with the LEGO Star Wars Advent Calendar, as long as you know your child likes to play with this kind of toy. It’s good value and will provide your child with something new and fun to look forward to every single day before Christmas!

At the time of this writing there are only 4 left in stock at Amazon. Yikes! This thing is selling like hotcakes and it’s only September. I’m sure they will get more in stock. As hot as this product is already they’d be crazy not to.

Should Kids Even Use a Children’s eBook Reader?

First things first, are eBook readers even a good idea for our children? As with anything, there are pros and cons. Many parents already use technology as a learning tool for children, and eBook readers can provide extra features that real books just can’t, such as sound and video. True, you could use a computer for this, but an eBook reader provides a much safer environment for a child.

EBooks themselves also come with a number of benefits, not least the fact that they’re digital and don’t clutter up your home! As long as the books you need are available in eBook form, you can help the environment and save space in the home or in your child’s backpack.

The only real downside is that eBook readers themselves are expensive, and the eBooks can be too. This is especially true for eReaders designed with kids in mind, where there are only a very limited, relatively expensive range of titles available to buy.

Choosing The Best eBook Readers For Children

Many of the eBook readers on the market for adults are designed to look as much like paper books as possible. As such, they have very plain designs and black and white screens using “e-Ink” technology. Although e-Ink is easy on the eyes and pleasant to read, it might not really inspire your child to get reading more often.

Instead, it helps to look towards specific items designed for children. Not only are these more “fun” and eye-catching, but they’re also easier to operate, and made to be more durable. We all know just how much our kids can put their toys through! Would you really want to risk that with a delicate glass-screened eReader?!

The V. Reader Animated eBook System is currently the only real option available for kids on the market today. The design itself is fun and colorful, and it comes in either blue or pink to suit your child’s tastes. This eBook reader is far cheaper than other readers like the Kindle or Nook, but the downside is that it requires new cartridges for different books, which can be relatively expensive.

Some extra features of the V. Reader include the fact that kids can type on the Qwerty keyboard, look up works in the dictionary, hear stories read aloud, play reading games and more.

In short, eBook readers for children are very valid educational tools, and can help make reading fun through the use of interactive features. Take some time to make sure that there are books your child likes, and they’re bound to find enjoyment with this Children’s eBook Reader.

LeapFrog has become known for creating educational toys for kids that make learning fun. If you’re looking for something that’ll help your child learn to write, and develop their alphabet skills, then the LeapFrog Scribble and Write is an extremely affordable option.

How Does The LeapFrog Scribble and Write Work?

The Scribble and Write is a simple console featuring a full alphabetical keyboard, a screen for writing the letters on, a stylus, speaker, and a few other simple controls. It’s chunky enough to withstand typical child behavior, and the stylus is a good size for gripping with small hands.

Scout the puppy will help guide your child as they trace the lights on the screen to draw various shapes. As they progress, the child will then move onto both upper and lowercase letters as they learn to write. In total there are four learning modes that get more advanced as your child moves along.

In addition to writing skills, the Scribble and Write also helps to develop knowledge of the alphabet, pencil control and phonics skills.

As with other handheld educational devices from LeapFrog, parents also have the added benefit of being able to connect to the online LeapFrog Learning Path program to keep track of what their children are learning.

Should You Buy The LeapFrog Scribble and Write?

Although the manufacturer recommends this toy be given to children of at least three years of age, many parents have claimed that children as young as two have enjoyed writing letters on the device. However, there are small parts which could present a choking hazard, so bear this in mind.

This educational toy is especially useful if you have a child who isn’t so keen to learn more about writing. With the LeapFrog Scribble and Write, it becomes fun! Many parents have reported their children wanting to play it for hours on end, not realizing just how much they are learning.

The addition of Scout the dog helps to keep children connected to what they’re doing, and many kids just love him. This addition, and the simple instructions, mean that the LeapFrog Scribble and Write system is more fun than normal writing practice.

The LeapFrog Scribble and Write is, thankfully, very affordable. It has received wholly positive reviews from parents who are amazed at just how captivated their kids seem to be when using it. All in all, this is a solid educational toy for your child, one that should last a while, and that won’t break the bank.

When it comes to Christmas, the holiday meal is the main event. We allow ourselves to indulge a little more than we would at any other time of year. Unfortunately, this often leaves a huge amount of waste, and the food we eat is less than ideal for the environment. Here are a few tips on making your Christmas dinner more eco friendly.

Buy Organic

If you don’t buy organic, then the chances are that the bird you eat will have been raised in intensive factory farms that are not only bad for the animals, but also bad for the environment. These animals may be full of unnatural hormones, and fed food that was grown using harmful chemicals.

Instead, opt for an organic turkey this year. This may be a more expensive option, but it’ll be far healthier for you and for our planet. If you want to save money then buy directly from a local farmer (buying local also has its other benefits as you’ll see below). And remember – the drinks you serve can be organic too!

Buy Local and Seasonal Produce

Buying local is a great way to support your local area. You’ll be keeping money in the hands of small time farmers, instead of the major corporations, and you’ll help to boost jobs where you live.

Buying local means that you won’t be buying food that’s travelled miles over the world to reach your table. Out of season vegetables often have to be flown in from countries with a different climate, which does nothing to help your carbon footprint. Seasonal and local really are the way to go.

Other Green Christmas Dinner Tips

There are a few other ways to save energy on your green Christmas dinner. Although you’ll likely be cooking a lot of the ingredients for the main meal, if you’ll be snacking beforehand, or serving starters, choosing food that doesn’t need cooking will save energy and time.

When you are cooking your food, try to open the oven as little as possible, use lids on saucepans to enable you to turn the heat down, and then leave the oven door open once cooking is finished to let the heat warm up the home.

Go Vegetarian

Although this tip isn’t for everyone, the absolute biggest thing you can do to help protect the environment this Christmas is to go vegetarian. One pound of meat takes far more energy and resources to produce than a pound of vegetables. There are now a huge number of delicious choices for vegetarian Christmas meals. If you can’t go the whole way, perhaps start by replacing a key ingredient with a vegetarian alternative and see how you like it.

Christmas Dinner Leftovers

It goes without saying that you should do your best to make the most of the leftovers after Christmas. Soups, stews and pies are all fantastic ways to use up leftover meat. And, if you’ve got too much to use, cook meals you can freeze or give leftovers to some of your Christmas guests, especially elderly guests who don’t cook as much as they used to. They’ll love having their meals ready for the next few days.