Christmas Countdown: Day 10!

This afternoon The Bee Household received a very special package. Toddler Bee eagerly ran to the door when he heard the bell ring and excitedly exclaimed, "A PACKAGE!" when he saw a big wrapped box sitting outside just waiting. And when I told him it was from the North Pole his little fingers were itching to tear into that wrapping paper.

Inside, we found a special package from Santa himself!

There was a letter for the kids from Santa, some treats, and two special surprises.

The first were the ingredients for Reindeer Food, which we made last year so Santa's reindeer could be sure to find our house. Good thing Santa sent the supplies because I exhausted my supply of magic reindeer dust last year! Reindeer Food can't be sprinkled until Christmas eve so we have our supplies waiting patiently in the cupboard.

The second surprise was a bit of a mystery. Santa sent us a large bowl filled with magic North Pole potting mix. And inside that were some Magic North Pole Seeds in a bag. Santa's instructions said we had to plant the seeds in the potting mix and in the morning there would be a surprise waiting for us. Oh boy was Toddler Bee ever excited! He happily buried the seeds and then checked on them every few hours just to see if anything was happening yet.

Imagine his surprise when come the morning there indeed was a surprise waiting for him!




You've never seen a smile so big or heard such a happy yell of, "It worked! A treat! A treat!"

We are very thankful to Santa for sending us such a lovely surprise to get our household excited for Christmas!

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If your kids are a little older and more observant you should probably buy a different bowl than one you already have in your cupboard. We used a bowl that had a lid, so nothing spilled.

I wrapped and placed the box outside while my toddler was busy. It would probably be easier to place it outside before the kids are awake or have a neighbour place it and run away.

The cookies were made while the kids were napping and then hidden until the next morning. I stuck toothpicks in the bottoms of them when they were still warm.

The bowl is filled with plain white sugar. When my toddler wasn't looking I used a mesh strainer to remove the seeds and then placed the cookies after he had gone to bed. I've seen other versions of this where they have the kids sprinkle the sugar with salt to help it grow; but that just seemed silly to me, especially since I planned on dumping this back in the bag to use at a later date.

 The reindeer food is just M&Ms, raw oats, red glitter, grass seed, and Trix cereal.

The magic seeds we planted are white rice dyed green with food colouring.