We are making ornaments this year,

• salt dough ornaments
• clear plastic ornaments filled with fake snow, Pom poms, glitter
• gods eye ornaments with Pom poms and beads
• and Pom Pom garland

So far in November we’ve made toilet paper roll turkeys, a construction paper wreath of “thankfulness”, and a letter matching leaf game that spells out Happy Thanksgiving.

Paper garland - cut shortwise across a 9x11 until all you have are about 1” strips, glue ends together into a loop, glue next loop through each last loop until you’re satisfied.

Paper candle. Using bright colored paper, cut in half (of 9x11 sheet) and glue wrapped around a toilet paper roll. Then cut out leaf shapes or little circles for berries and make a little “spray” to glue onto it like a display candle.

Felt door hanger - using felt, cut out rectangle triangle, tear drop, etc and glue them into layers to form candle in lantern or really whatever you want, just break it down into easy shapes for the kiddos.

Cut out a Christmas tree or a snow man and let them colour as they please. Don’t focus on the end product and let them create it however they choose to. If they don’t finish due to being energetic just leave them out and come back to them later. I find forcing children to sit through a craft to finish it if they don’t want to is counterproductive and usually makes them resent the doing a craft.

We do a few things that should be easy.

Dip cookie cutters in paint and 'stamp' a piece of paper.

Those cling gel stickers for windows we do on baking sheets or our big Arcadia door.

Get a bag of table scatter usually sparkly snowflakes and trees or something, and sprinkle on contact paper. I let him draw with the glue stick and then stick down the rest pieces on paper.

Cut up some pieces of wrapping paper and glue down then you can cut a tree or something out of whatever they come up with.

My kid loooooves painting with qtips. Draw a tree and let them paint the decorations on it.

Hope that helps!

I got some plain wood cutout ornaments from the dollar tree (they had Christmas trees, stars, etc) and had my almost two year old color them with markers. I spray painted a clear coat over them just to help them last a little longer since we used crayola washable markers. And so far the grandparents and other family members have loved them! Bonus my daughter loved coloring on them too.

Get a plate of green paint they can dip their hands in and let them make a bunch of handprints on a big piece of paper. Then you cut the handprints out and glue them to another piece of paper in the circle and BAM the kids made their parents a wreath.

Busy toddler on ig (and her website) has lots of great activities. Or Pinterest.

How about some crafts? I still remember cutting strips of construction paper and making them into big paper chains. They can write or draw pictures of things they love on each strip. Depending on what you already have or grocery prices you could also make dehydrated orange slice, popcorn, dried cranberry, etc garlands.

Honestly I think they will be thrilled with cookies, movie, and hot chocolate. Make the hot chocolate the scavenger hunt reward.

Love all the ideas here! I’d also add make a special Christmas breakfast (our tradition is cinnamon rolls but maybe snowman pancakes?) and maybe play a game as a family. You could also consider doing something with each kid individually, nothing big but read for 30 minutes with your 7 then play an age appropriate game with the 5, etc.

Most importantly though, don’t stress about the money or trying fill every moment of the day or making it perfect. It’s about being together and having fun. That’s what the kids will remember. Not the expensive gifts.

This isn’t no spend, but we like to get a board game for Christmas and play it all together. They usually go on sale this time of year and as your kids are still small, you could probably pick up something inexpensive. There’s a game called Spot it- where you have to find the pictures on cards and you race the other players. We have gotten sooooo loud playing this game. It’s under $10 and super fun. There’s also a card game called taco, cat, goat, cheese, pizza- super simple, super fun and under $10.

You can make carnival style games for little/no cost like making a bean bag toss (you can use scrap fabric or lonely socks and beans or rice to fill them and sew them shut) or using bottles and metal can rings (like the ones you use for home canning) for ring toss. Also, look up minute to win it games- a lot of them can be set up easily and with stuff you already have.

You can make snow dye with spray bottles, water, and food coloring to decorate outside.

No spend holidays can be so fun and pretty easy with littles. You just set up the ‘stations’ the night before and play different games.

Driving around to see the lights, Christmas books and cocoa. Pinterest has a ton of Christmas games. We like to play Christmas true or false, Scooping snowballs (blindfold the kids, give them a spatula and see who can shovel the most snow balls/ cottonballs) into a cup or bowl. Christmas Bingo. I love the scavenger hunt idea!

Going ice skating, if that is an option where you are

Hike, build a fairy house while you're there with natural materials

Make cards for people in senior housing and deliver them or maybe a widow/er in your own neighborhood

Watch a Christmas movie marathon with popcorn and fancy kid drinks

Buy some chalk and have the kids decorate the driveway for the neighbors with Christmas messages.

Go around your neighborhood caroling

In addition to the salt dough and pinecone bird feeders, my kids like to paint and glitter pinecones to hang on the Christmas tree, cutting up junk mail with scissors or paper punches and glue to paper plates to make wreaths, punch shapes out of old Christmas cards to make gift tags.

You can grab some very simple and super cheap! recipes for air dry clay on the internet. We used some of that to form little balls and then flatten them into little round discs. Then you use her thumbs to press into the dough to form a V. Looks like a heart! Also like a small hole into the top for hanging later. After They dry, like 24 hours, you can paint the little hearts. Or leave them white, they're so cute!

What does she like to do?

My kids are big into visual stimuli so we made snow globes- clear plastic bottle, oil, water, food coloring, glitter, little items- they really like spinning them and watching the glitter and the oil and water separate.

Also fake snow/snow flake stencil- do snowflakes on the windows. Spraying fake snow on windows is fun. Or my kids like it.

Cotton ball snow people. Also construction paper stockings.

Oh I loved making food for the birds- I can’t remember exactly what it was but it was like a pine cone with peanut butter and bird seed. I would check on that because I haven’t made them since I was a kid. I also liked putting cloves in oranges but I honestly have no idea what the point of making those was.

Salt ornaments

We also do pre made gingerbread houses which is basically an excuse to make and eating icing and to have candy for lunch.

Christmas Countdown Rings!

We make it our own, and change it up every year but like this year we are having the rings hang from a Christmas Tree made from construction paper that the kids decorated. Everynight before bed the kids get to pull a ring off to countdown to Christmas eve. ��❤Here is a general idea for you !

https://youtu.be/Z1YshkHMR_o

I saw this really neat snowflake displays made out of clothes hangers!

Edit: went back and looked and it’s actually in this thread posted 14 days ago!

Everything with cardboard!! I’m thinking of all the boxes coming in from our favorite online retailer…. Ornaments and wreaths come to mind so far. Maybe you could even sew pasta onto cardboard tree cutout to make a little tree with pasta ornaments?

Paper ring chains? Not that we have as many newspapers hanging around these days, but any newsprint, magazines, catalogues, scrap paper, etc.

I bet you could do a lot with toilet paper rolls and paper towel rolls.

Instagram reels is gonna have your answers.

Look on Pinterest! We're making wood slice ornaments this year.

Cards. I'm old fashioned and still like to give them to people, but even so, last year I went overboard and ended up packaging them in bundles up for others, for them to give out.

Paperchains.

Bunting - I bought a stupidly expensive Christmas paper punch so used it to create little double-sided motifs on a ribbon.

Origami/kirigami snowflakes, as window or tree decorations.

And not so much crafts, but crafty - Christmas biscuits. I got a cookie gun and OH MY GOODNESS, it was so much fun making multiple little biscuits and then decorating them.

I love to do all sorts of crafting and art, but due to very limited time and space and cats ruin everything - I have gotten used to doing “easier” crafts with paper scrapbooking and then crafts paints. I’ve been making hot cocoa packets and treat holders to use some cute holiday paper and then give away the stuff I make in little gifts. Homemade tags .

I love to paint and decorate glass and plastic ornaments. Paint pour swirling inside, glitter, painting designs on outside, stickers, gemstones. Anything.

Imagine wire wrapped beading on ornaments !! Or making fancy ornament hooks with beads. That’s would look very pretty

I love to paint on wooden objects and ceramics, or getting glass objects and painting designs on them.

Soap! I made a cider scented soap yesterday evening. Candles. Baking. Sewing.

Super easy and looks very pro- glass etching

We do a LOT of DIY gifts! Last year we tie-dyed face masks for the family that would appreciate them. I’ve also let my kiddos paint canvases and then attached their Santa photo to them. This year we did handprint reindeer canvases, handprint Christmas tree wine glasses (I added the details and did the stems), painted vases silver and did their fingerprints in different colors and turned them into lights, and made Christmas tree picture frames that the kids decorated with gems and pom poms.

I like doing handprint ornaments. Or decorating a picture frame and adding a family picture.

Get an inexpensive wood frame and child safe paint and let her finger paint it (take out glass and backing first!) and then send it with a cute picture of her with them.

Personalized coasters. Target in my area is selling plain, ceramic coasters (in shape of circle, square, and star) in their cheap dollar section. I got one for each kid. I will paint a base color, then use another color to take the finger prints of their thumbs to make a heart. Then I’ll write the name and year on it and add a gloss finish.

Google ball handprint ornament.

Gingerbread ornaments made w cinnamon dough and painted?

My last NF I did foot tree Christmas cards for both sets of grandparents and mom and dad! Also if you print out a coupon cute pics of them from CVS or Walgreens and thrown them in there the parents always appreciate that :)

That is what I do for all the Holidays. My suggestion is use non toxic paint. Do it on bath day. Cut around the foot or hand print so you can do the art on another piece of paper and not worry about messing up. Pinterest has tons of ideas.

Thank you for your response! Pray for me, it’s going to be a lot with both of them 🙃 We are going to do a trial this weekend.