Our family Christmas traditions with Hallmark

Ever since I was small, my favourite time of the year has always been Christmas, and not just because of the new toys and two weeks without school! I just loved spending time with my family, enjoying all of the traditions my parents worked hard to create, and I know that one day, when I had a family of my own, I would do exactly the same. And I did.

It’s funny because as a family we are far from traditional and yet when it comes to Christmas I am all about creating good old fashioned fun. I love the idea that one day my children will do the same with their children, with the fondest memories of their childhood Christmas’s, and we can create even more traditions with a gaggle of grandchildren! This year, we had a helping hand from Hallmark and their online shop.

Christmas Crafts

I’ll be honest with you here, I’m not the best when it comes to crafting and more often than not our crafts are a bit of a disaster. That’s why, when it comes to Christmas crafting, I like to buy activities that are all ready planned out with full instructions, like this Build a Christmas tree activity card. Not only does it double up as a Christmas card, but inside there are lots of fun tree decorations to cut and stick, colourful strips for paper chains, and full instructions on how to make both!

Paper chains always remind me of being young and making them at school or to decorate the church hall as a Brownie, and so making them with the children is something we try and do each year. I love that Hallmark made it so much easier with each patterned strip ready to be cut out and a clear indicator of where to stick them, making the activity far less messy and sticky than usual!

Eva was so pleased with her paper chain and where as usually I encourage the children to decorate their own bedrooms with their Christmas crafts (“Yes darling that’s beautiful but how about we hang that in your room….with the door closed!”), but this year their paper chains were so beautiful they took pride of place in the lounge and Eva could not have been more proud!

The build your own Christmas tree part of the craft is such a fun thing to do and although you need to source cardboard to make the actual tree, the activity card gives a template to follow so it’s easy to do with a grown up helping. You then cut out all of the tree decorations, some of which you can colour in, and allow yourself to be as creative as you like!

I love simple cutting and gluing crafts, as do the children, as it means they can do the whole thing almost entirely by themselves and feel a real sense of independence and achievement. The girls absolutely adore crafting of any kind and where as Harry is more than happy to just cut and glue ’til his hearts content, Eva and Megan are very meticulous about their crafts and really planned out their trees to look as beautiful as possible.

This is our first time trying one of the Hallmark activity cards but it certainly won’t be the last. I was so impressed that for just £4 they provided a couple of hours of fun. There are other cards in the range too – Build a Christmas town, A Gingerbread House, and even a Santa Spotting Kit! We can’t wait to try the others before Christmas is through!

Writing Christmas Cards

Ever since Joseph died I haven’t sent Christmas cards to anyone other than the children, mostly because I just couldn’t bring myself to write out cards with one name missing. That said, just as I did as a child, my children absolutely love writing Christmas cards and take great pleasure in choosing them out for their friends and teachers and writing personalised messages and drawings inside.

Hallmark have such a lovely range of greetings cards, either boxed or individual, and this year the children chose these Festive Character Christmas cards in a pack of 18 in a choice of 3 designs. With Santa, penguins and reindeers, they are always such good quality with plenty of room for the thousands of kisses Megan likes to sign off with in each card.

In our house writing Christmas cards can only be done with Christmas music playing in the background, dance breaks to shake off aching hands from gripping the pen, and finished off with a warm hot chocolate piled with marshmallows. It always puts a big smile on my face and reminds me that although our Christmas will always be bitter sweet, we are very lucky to share these moments as a family of six.

Random Acts of Kindness

One of the most important things I try to teach my children is the act of being kind, something I think we could all try harder at some days. I am the first to admit that my children are spoilt rotten at Christmas, and I make no excuses for that, but it’s also very important to me that they know how lucky they are and they give back to those who are less fortunate. One way we do this is by random acts of kindness.

It could be something as simple as leaving chocolate coins for others to discover, delivering a grocery package to an elderly neighbour, or baking festive goodies for the children’s school friends to enjoy, but also we like to buy and wrap presents to take to our local women’s refuge, hospitals or children’s hospice. This year Megan was particularly excited to choose out some gifts to give to the children and with Frozen 2 very much in the forefront of her mind, chose the Anna, Elsa and Olaf Itty Bitty’s to brighten someones Christmas.

Hallmark’s Itty Bitty’s are fun little soft toys in all of the children’s favourite characters. So alongside Disney characters you can discover Marvel, Star Wars, Harry Potter and the Wizard of Oz too. I love that they are small enough for little hands to hold, pop into a bag when travelling or play with to act our your favourite scenes. They are great stocking fillers too!

We wrapped our presents in Hallmark red foil wrapping paper, my favourite colour for Christmas gifts and available in a handy 2 roll bundle. I love Hallmark wrapping paper, it’s just such good quality, easy to cut, and doesn’t tear to shreds when you try to wrap anything pointy! And trust me, with four children to wrap for I have been through a lot of wrapping paper over the years!

Special cards for the children

And lastly, our final tradition is to send special cards to each of the children to let them know how special they are to us and how regardless of everything else, waking up to them on Christmas morning will always be the greatest gift we could ever hope for. And this year we had some very special cards to tell them just that.

Hallmark have the most innovative giant play cards for children that double up as a fun fold-out sleigh! I love that they come as a giant and so you can place them in the envelope and give them in the traditional way and then surprise the children later by transforming them before their very eyes!

The cards have a die-cut fold out design so you simply fold along the creases, slot the ends together and hop inside! Megan absolutely loved having her very own sleigh and with a steam train, an aeroplane and a gingerbread house to choose from there is something to make Christmas magical for every child.

Even better, when they’ve finished playing (although I’m not sure we will ever be done with this!) the envelope has some fun activities to complete so it really is a gift that just keeps on giving.

Christmas really is the most magical time of the year and for every family those special moments come in so many different shapes and forms. I love that we have our own Christmas traditions to share together, and how each year we simply add to them to create more and more. As much as I love Christmas Day and the excitement of the gifts and the food, it’s all of these moments leading up to the big day that I cherish the most and I plan on enjoying every single one of them.

** We were gifted these items from Hallmark and compensated for our time. All words and opinions are my own. **