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The moment it starts feeling a little chilly, I start looking forward to planning Christmas. I don’t think I’m alone in starting my Christmas planning, if the memes going around Facebook are anything to go by! Once the kids are back at school, I like to book festive treats for the family, as in the past I’ve left it too late and been disappointed.
I’m officially sounding the Christmas Prep Klaxon! #SorryNotSorry
So here is my ultimate Christmas planning list. The events are localised to the Bucks area, but hopefully it will give you ideas of some things to book in your own area. And you can do all the Christmas home activities wherever you are. Get ready to make some magical Christmas memories with my 22 ideas to create a wonderful Christmas season! Scroll down and download my printable list to planning your Christmas activities.
Christmas Planning: Activities to Book Now
I’ll start off my ultimate Christmas planning list with family-friendly activities you’ll need to book in advance.
1. Book A Visit to Father Christmas
Arguably the most important Christmas planning event, booking to see Santa is a hot topic on the mum forums!
In Milton Keynes, probably the most well known Santa is at Frosts Grotto in Woburn Sands. Tickets for their Father Christmas experience tend to sell out quickly. Although we’ve never been to Frost’s for Christmas, I’ve been to their other seasonal events and they are always good.
A few years ago we went to the Dobbies Christmas Grotto, which was really wonderful, and the girls loved chatting to Father Christmas in his cabin.
2. Book A Christmas Pantomime
Do you have a good panto near you? We took the girls to one of our local pantomimes last year and the year before, and they loved it. We didn’t go to the main one, but chose an amateur production and it was really good fun, and a lot cheaper.
This is a nice activity to book for after Christmas too.
3. Book Ice Skating
How about a bit of ice skating to get you into the festive mood? We went on Christmas eve for the first time and it was hilarious. My husband Ryan, and Ava and Thea are all really good at skating. I am terrible. I just go for the hot chocolate and festive atmosphere.
4. Book Magical Waddesdon Manor at Christmas
One of the highlights of the Christmas season for us is a visit to Waddesdon Manor, near Aylesbury. They decorate the manor house and ground in the most beautiful way, and have some kind of outside light event too. National Trust properties around the country will be having magical displays too, so you should find one near to you.
One year they had brilliant projections on the house itself, which was amazing. Read about our previous visits to Waddesdon at Christmas here and here.
There is also a lovely Christmas market running earlier in the season, so it’s a great day out. This is one to book ASAP as the house time slots get booked up well in advance. I recommend booking a slot for around 4pm if you can, so that it’s dark when you come out, and you can go and enjoy the lights display in the grounds straight away.
Christmas Planning: Share the Love
I like to encourage the children to give to others at Christmas so here are some ways to share the Christmas love.
5. Make Up An Operation Christmas Child Shoe Box
Every year, we make up a shoe box of little gifts, which is sent to a developing country to a child who would otherwise receive nothing. Apart from being fun for the girls, it’s a great way to help them appreciate how lucky they are, and to help others. You can read about what we’ve put in our Christmas box in this post.
6. Wear a Christmas Jumper to Help Save the Children
I believe most schools (and workplaces) have Christmas Jumper Day, and we always take part, in exchange for a donation to Save The Children. Plan ahead if you don’t already have a Christmas jumper, so you can get a good one. Start looking on eBay, Depop, Vinted and Oxfam online to get a second hand one.
Christmas Planning: Home Activities
I’ll move on to more home-based Christmas activities, that you can start planning now.
7. Fill a Homemade Advent Calendar
I love my advent calendar – it’s a set of little cardboard houses, which make up a village. You pop a little treat in each one, for Advent. It looks fab, but if you go down this route, be prepared to spend a lot of time putting the boxes together!
I normally dismantle a Lego Advent calendar and pop the mini kits in each box. You could add sweets or little toys, or Lego.
An easier alternative is something I did a few years back, before I transitioned to natural beauty. I bought a Marks and Spencer beauty advent calendar, emptied it out and gifted the products or used them myself, and reused the box. You can read all about my beauty advent calendar hack here.
8. Light Candles
For the past few years, I’ve taken great delight in burning this lovely advent candle every evening. Some evenings I had to do a couple of sections, if I missed a night!
You can find lots of different versions of my Bookishly art work here – I expect they will have Christmas ones soon!
9. Create a Christmas Eve Box
Every Christmas Eve, I get out our Christmas Eve box, and with a little planning, you can add to it each year! Our box contains the girls’ Christmas stockings, Christmas books and DVDs, and a pair of new Christmas PJs each. I also add a jar of hot chocolate mix and some marshmallows, and a carrot and mince pie for Santa.
The girls put on their PJs, and hang their stockings on our cast iron stocking holders.
My sister and I made their Christmas stockings, but you can find a gorgeous selection of personalised Christmas stockings on Etsy here.
They drink their hot chocolate whilst we watch a Christmas film and read festive stories.
Want to know how we transformed our dated fireplace? Read my fireplace makeover tutorial here.
Christmas Planning: Festive Makes and Bakes
I love a home made Christmas, and here are some of the ways you can plan some festive creativity – buy the materials in good time in case they sell out!
10. Decorate a Gingerbread House
You could make a Christmas Gingerbread House from scratch… or you could buy a gingerbread kit. I suggest doing the latter, and also buy the special construction icing and decorating kit. Normal icing doesn’t dry quickly enough, leading to collapse, but the special icing sets fast, so you can get on with the fun of decorating. Ours was from IKEA and tasted as good as it looks.
This gingerbread tastes really yummy, as well as looking fab.
11. Make Christmas Star Biscuits
Making and decorating Christmas biscuits is a lovely Christmas tradition, and we do it most years. But I haven’t ever used them as decorations too! Caro from The Twinkle Diaries has though, and let me borrow her lovely photo – don’t they look gorgeous! She says they are so yummy they don’t stay around for long… find Caro’s recipe for edible Christmas decorations here.
12. Make Peppermint Bark
Peppermint bark makes a quick and easy Christmas gift – you can find my peppermint bark recipe here. It’s also a good way to use up any leftover candy canes!
13. Make Chocolate Orange Fudge, Orangecello and Dried Orange Decorations
Why not make home made edible gifts this Christmas? You can easily make orangecello with vodka, oranges and sugar – plan this Christmas treat ahead, as you’ll need to leave it for a few weeks to infuse. Chocolate orange fudge (or regular fudge) make great gifts too. A quick Google will find lots of easy recipes!
Sam from Dove Cottage has a great way to use oranges for frugal, eco-friendly Christmas decorations – check out her instructions here. I’ve done them a few times and they smell so amazing, it’s well worth it.
14. Create Home Made Gift Tags and Wrapping
Now you’ve made your lovely home made Christmas gifts, get wrapping the eco-friendly way. Use brown paper, baker’s twine and plain gift tags that you (or the kids) can decorate.
15. Fold an Origami Star Christmas Tree Topper
Add a personal touch to your Christmas tree with an origami star – you can buy a kit from Origami-Est. It comes with easy-to-follow instructions and papers to make three stars.
16. Make a Christmas Cake
I actually hate Christmas Cake as I don’t like dried fruit. So I never make one, but here is one my mum made a few years back, complete with a festive village with a giant snowman. Again you’ll need to plan this in advance so your cake has time to mature. My mum uses this Christmas Cake recipe by Delia Smith.
17. Make a Christmas Wreath
I am a little wreath crazy. I always make one for our door – find ideas to steal on this blog post, which has my top 5 Christmas door wreaths!
I also make Winter Wreaths, which go on an inside wall. They are also super quick and easy to make, and smell fantastic thanks to the eucalyptus. They look great for months as they dry out so well.
18. Read a Christmas Book (or Five)
Every year I like to add a Christmas book to our stash. We love a Christmas story in this house!
19. Decorate Your Windows with a Christmas Scene
Last year, I decorated our bay window with a festive scene, using chalk pens – I recommend Posca chalk pens which you can buy here. It’s really fun to do, and looks so sweet.
20. Pick Your Own Christmas Tree
Picking your own Christmas tree, fresh from the field is such fun, I would recommend it to everyone! You can see how we got on choosing our Christmas tree here.
21. Treat Yourself to a New Bauble or Two
I like to buy a new bauble every year. As we inevitably smash a couple when decorating the Christmas tree, it helps even it out. I couldn’t resist these leopard print baubles, which you can buy here.
22. Count Down To Christmas
Why not use a light box or letter board to count down how many more sleeps there are until Christmas?
I hope you’ve found my ultimate Christmas planning list helpful, do you have any good ideas I should add to it? Please leave me a comment, and Pin this guide for later.
Why not download my Ultimate Christmas Planning List and create your own magical memories? Just click the download button.
Looking for Christmas gift ideas? Get your Christmas shopping planned nice and early with these ethical gift guides. Click on the image to go through to the blog post.
Ethical Gift Guide for Her
Ethical Gifts for Kids
These are some great tips. love the idea of this post! Will have to create like this. What an ingenious little idea. Your photo really caught my attention.
Thank you so much Mary
Hi Becky, thanks for the great tips! I’m really looking forward to Christmas this year and the girls are as well of course, will save this post and definitely check out some of these places x
Thanks so much Danielle, itโs such a magical age for your girls this year isnโt it! Hope you can find some good things to take them to xx