Happy Holiday Ideas from Call Me Grandma!
I love thinking up holiday ideas for table setting, decorating, gift giving, and family activities. Since 2019, I’ve been sharing my ideas on this blog. Today’s feature is a roundup from past posts.
Holiday Ideas for Setting a Festive Table
I love to set a special table for our family Christmas Eve dinner. Each year is a different design.
- Gumdrop trees are the perfect centerpiece for a candyland-themed table.
- Trees made from Gingerbread people and candy canes are a child’s delight. Kids can eat the centerpieces later.
- Create a woodland Christmas table with Christmas tree branches, pine cones, and Styrofoam snowballs.
- How to design your holiday table. Take a look at how I put together a red and gold snowflake-themed table setting, with step-by-step photos.
Holiday Ideas for Decorating
I’m always looking for ways to up my decorating game. This year, I stitched some red and green, solid and plaid pillow covers with fabrics on sale at Joann.
- Here are my top 15 Christmas tree decorating tips, if you haven’t put up your tree yet.
- Make snow-covered branches and find other ways to brighten your home for the holidays.
Holiday Ideas for Gift Giving
If the grandkids haven’t come up with a gift for their parents yet, there’s still time for these DIY ideas:
- Chocolate Truffles are easy to make and irresistibly delicious. This project is best for older kids because forming the truffles is messy business.
- Hot Cocoa Stirring Spoons are a welcome gift that takes hardly any time for kids to make.
- Kids can make a practical and attractive desk caddy using toilet paper rolls.
- A love jar is a wonderful, last-minute gift. Kids decorate a jar and fill it with slips of paper, writing loving thoughts and promises to perform various services.
- Make photo Christmas ornaments that the grandkids can give as gifts. You might still be able to get the bath bomb shells, the basis for these ornaments, in time for Christmas.
- Giving a cash gift to a grandchild? Personalize it by tucking the cash into the center of a surprise ball made of crepe paper strips, revealing small trinkets as the ball is unrolled.
- A tissue paper bowl is an easy and inexpensive gift. Kids can make small bowls to hold lightweight objects such as paper clips or hair accessories.
- Create a bud vase from a discarded spice jar.
- A custom-designed notebook can be a gift for mom or dad.
- Gather digital family photos and help a child to make a video greeting card.
- Kids can fashion their own custom gift wraps and tags using homemade potato stamps.
Holiday Activities
Activities done from year to year, such as baking Christmas cookies, become much-anticipated family traditions. I started our gingerbread house party over zoom during the pandemic to keep our family connected and to provide entertainment for the grandkids. Now we gather each year in my kitchen to make these houses together, enjoy some snacks, and keep the tradition alive.
- Host a gingerbread house party for the family, using graham crackers for the “gingerbread.”
- Invite a grandchild to participate in prepping for holiday events to ensure holiday traditions live on for the next generation.
- Plan a long-distance cookie baking session if grandkids live far away.
- Try these tips for making indelible holiday memories with the grandkids.
“Call Me Grandma!” Goes on Vacation
I will be taking a three-week vacation beginning today, returning on Wednesday, January 10. Miss T, N, and I wish you the happiest of holidays. Thanks for visiting my blog, “Call Me Grandma!” this year.
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