Building Christmas spirit

I’m trying to get N excited by Christmas.  Obviously he has no idea what it is, what it’s about, but it’ll be good to have someone else in the house who likes Christmas and gets excited by it, in contrast to the OH who’s a bit of a bah humbug.

At the moment, his favourite app is Talking Father Christmas (or Santa, whichever is preferred – I’m a FC type of girl), although he does keep referring to it as ‘man’ when he wants to play.  He likes hitting the ‘feed’ button so maybe putting out milk, carrots and a mince pie for Father Christmas will begin this year.

I’ve also taken him through a couple of store Christmas displays – he likes the lights, but not sure he’s fussed about much else.  He seems to like the feel of tinsel so I might have to get him some to put in his room as we don’t have tinsel on the tree.  He also likes Christmas wrapping paper…maybe not for all the pictures and lovely metallic-y colours and sparkle, more for the fun taking it out and putting it back into the store display boxes (and bashing things with it!).  Must train him as wrapping gifts are one of my favourite parts of Christmas.

I’m also putting together an advent calendar for him.  I managed to get hold of a bargain fabric one last year in the Lakeland sale so am looking forward to filling the pockets with little treats (likely to be crafty things, a few chocolate coins and some domino pieces etc)…I’m thinking I may have to put each item in every evening in case he thinks he can have all of them at once.

We’ve done a bit of Christmas crafting – sticking, glitter and stamping, and I’ve got some more Christmas stickers and tinsel pipe cleaners to make some decorations too.  We attempted salt dough style decorations, with a variety of cutters.  N likes sticking and ripping up paper, with a bit of painting but doesn’t really like getting his hands messy with dough or paint.  In the end they’ve turned out quite well; they’re a bit chunky so I’m not sure the tree will be able to take then, so we may have to place them somewhere else – maybe hanging from the banisters?

I’m excited about stockings this year as we loved them as children, so definitely want to be creating that excitement for N, and his presents have been bought – even the OH got excited and made a decision about something he wanted him to have.

We’re also going to the Hyde Park Winter Wonderland.  It was going to be for an online mums meet, but it’s not always at a good time of year when everyone’s having to plan for Christmas.  I’m pleased as we’d also arranged to meet 2 of my old school friends for our annual ‘christmas’ meet up, so it’ll be great to seem them and their children as well as getting into the Christmas spirit.  My only hope is that the weather is dry as pushing a buggy and trying not to get too wet at that time of year when you’re out for the day would be horrendous.  Oh, and that the train journey isn’t too much of a nightmare with an almost 2 year old, especially as chances are he won’t have had a nap all day.  I think planning the journey was the biggest challenge, but now we’ve got my ticket that’s the decision made.  I can’t wait, and hope that it’s a great day, with lots of fun and sparkle for N.

Are you all sorted for Christmas, or are you a last minute whirlwind?