This game is a great way to avoid that the kids eat all the chocolate and sweets up they get from Saint Nicolas at once. We played this game a little every day and kept the sweet-eating at bay.
You can find this game at skillo.hu in Hungarian. The Angels brought us a version which can be played in any languages (there’s nothing written on the board).
The idea of the game is that you put a piece of chololate or sweet on each picture of St Nicolas. One person doesn’t look and the others pick a Santa. The closed-eyed person looks at the board and starts eating the sweets one by one.
When she/he wants to eat the sweet on the chosen Santa you shout: Don’t eat Santa! The remaining sweets are put into a little bowl in front of the player. Then it’s the next player’s turn. We had 4 rounds. At the end the winner was who had the fewest sweets left in their bowl.
E. was the lucky one, but we were all winners as we could eat up our remaining marshmellows. Yum!
After visiting Santa on his sleigh in our main square L. was talking about nothing else but Santa and his beard. I had to come up with an activity on the spot as we couldn’t stay long outside due to the harsh weather.
I printed this Santa with the numbered beard. I made this picture as I planned a countdown until Christmas but I changed my mind. (In Hungary Santa’s Day – St. Nicolas’ Day is on the 6th December and the Angels or Baby Jesus bring presents at Christmas. I didn’t want to mix these things, they’s quite confusing enough.)
I presented a bottle of glue and cotton ball and some crayons for L. and the sticking could start. Well first we tried to colour the top part of the head and the mittens, but she wasn’t that interested. She longed to make the beard.
Her concentration span is very short so I was pretty amazed when she stuck up the cotton ball on Santa’s beard up to 11. (I was pointing at and calling out the numbers for her and she did the gluing and sticking)
After 11 she was throwing the cotton balls all over the living room. Every now and then she came back to stick some more cotton balls on, but that was all. Still, I finished it for her and we displayed it on our living-room door where everybody could see the beautiful artwork.
Last year I started a hopefully long tradition: taking note of daily memories of December, the advent period, our Christmas itself, the days between holidays and New Years Eve too. Here is the last year’s post.
Now come all the memories of December 2017 day by day in one long post. (This year we’ll be making a paper-based memory booklet as well.)
1st December
The kids were at their grandparents and the Angels have brought us the advent calendar.
This year the main theme is decorating a Christmas tree with stickers. It’s great as both girls can do it and enjoy it.
Our advent “wreath” is ready. It’s evident we didn’t have much time for it this year either. Perhaps next year.
2nd December
In the morning we had a family photo shoot in our home. See the photo collage a little further down.
Our annual Gingerbread Party was in full swing by the afternoon. Friends came over and we made and decorated more than a kilo of gingerbread (this time it was dairy- and egg-free. If you’re interested in the recipe, just drop me a line. It’s really tasty and soft.)
Gingerbread teamIn the making
When all our guests were gone E. did the washing of the cookie cutters all by herself.
Mommy’s little helperAnd we had some more fun at the dinner table. E. made sure L. can’t take out her hair clip(s).
3rd December
In the morning we went to buy winter boots for E. as this week it’s started to snow.
We lit the first candle on our Advent wreath today.
E. has been singing 12 Days of Christmas all day in birdy voice. (Check out this short video if you want to hear how a bird sings 12 Days of Christmas)
We’ve been playing with the choo-choo train nearly all afternoon.
E. read The Gingerbread Man for L.
I read How the Grinch stole Christmas by Dr. Seuss to E. as a bedtime story.
This was a quiet day. E. was in kindergarten and I was running errands. Little L. spent the whole day at her Grandma. We picked E. up from kindergarten together and we immediately changed into English.
At home E. found an old English writing practice book and started to work on it.
L. was walking around in her pretty red shoes the heels of which light up.
Of course, more stickers got on our Christmas tree.
5th December
In the morning Little L. and I went to the Helen Doron English session (Toddler’s Best Start is the name of our new course) which she enjoyed a lot because our new topic was vehicles (trucks, cars, trains, planes) L.’s been crazy about them lately.
But the highlight of the day was the play performed by E.’s kindergarten teachers – St Nick’s glove. It was a cute and loveable show.
My Mum was taking care of Little L while we were watching the play in the kindergarten. After having arrived home the kids opened some presents that St. Nicolas had brought to their grandma’s house.
In the evening the girls cleaned their boots and put them out into the window waiting for St. Nick to fill them with goodies. E. was really excited. She wanted to stay up to have a look at Santa.
6th December
I didn’t have to say twice to the kids to get out of bed in the morning. Within a blink of an eye they were in the living-room checking their boots.
They opened their gifts with great excitement. Although we were in Hungarian, they got books, and activities in English, some toys and sweets.
Our native nanny, N. was here in the morning and they tried to paint a magic booklet L. just got from Santa.
E. met “the real Santa” (as she put it) in her kindergarten.
In the afternoon Little L. met St. Nick in our main square. At first she was a little scared but then she got a candy (szaloncukor) and she kept saying she wanted to go back. We were in English but Santa and his helpers, of course, spoke Hungarian, still Little L. talked to me in English.
We didn’t stay out much as it was very cold and windy. All the way home L. buried her little face in my shoulder. At home we made Santa’s beard out of cotton wool balls.
7th December
We had some healthy snacks, like raw broccoli in the market and dried cranberries at home.
Our native nanny was here and E. showed her what she got from Santa.
In the advent calendar we found an instruction to put some Christmas lights on the windows. (If I can take a photo of it I’ll attach later on)
8th December
I was brave enough to give E. our paper-based Days of December album. She was cutting out some photos and I glued them in, but what she enjoyed the most was putting stickers all over the album.
9th December
In the morning we went shopping with E. as she’d grown so much that all her leggings are short, her socks are too small.
Fooling around in the changing room
We were invited to our Helen Doron school to make some advent crafts. I’ve written a separate blog post on it.
10th December
We lit the second candle on our advent wreath.
The girls improvised dot-market painting. The end result looked like Christmas lights.
The girls had been eating so much sweets all day that I made them an obstacle race field in our living room where they could burn their energies.
We’ve started to prepare some Christmas presents and cards with E.
We received our Christmas photos. They turned out pretty well.
11th December
Our Advent Christmas tree is getting nicer and nicer with all kinds of stickers.
We finished some greeting cards for Christmas with the girls. (I’ll be writing a separate blog post on the cards and the baubles.)
12th December
Gingerbread party in the kindergarten. L. is a little snotty so she didn’t come but enjoyed the company of her grandma and grandpa. We could spend the day together with E. in her kindergarten.
What she enjoyed the most was she could show me her favourite toys and we could play together both inside and outside, in the playground. After lunch we came home and took a nap. Next we prepared some Christmas baubles we’ll give to her teachers and friends.
13th December
Last Helen Doron lessons of this year for the girls.
Little L. surprised her teacher, Z., with Christmas presents (a Christmassy pen and a Christmas card that we’d made with her hand-and fingerprint) and she said Merry Christmas in the morning.
E. gave her Christmas present to Zs. (her Helen Doron teacher) in the afternoon after her lesson. It was a Christmassy pen, the green-yellow bauble we’d made the day before and her hand Christmas tree card. She wrote Merry Christmas inside.
Zs. sent me how her bauble looks on her Christmas tree.
In the afternoon we went on to make some more Christmas presents.
With Little L. we made Christmas tree decorations out of air-dry clay and sequins.
With E. we made a clay hand-shaped , which I’d been planning to make for a long time but we didn’t have the time for it (see the source and step-by-step instructions of the idea on the link above).
They are all waiting to dry:
14th December
Our English-speaking friends visited us. In the morning my friend, B., who speaks only English to the girls, came over and played with E. and L.. She also stayed for lunch too. The kids were excited and a little ill so the whole morning was chaotic and tense. Still, we survived and spent the morning in the company of a much-loved friend.
After nap time N, our native nanny came to have our last session this year. On Tuesday E. invited her for dinner, so she stayed to dine with us. E. gave N. our little mainly home-made Christmas presents
E. is explaining what she put in the bauble
and the girls also got a really pretty Christmas card with N.’s poem written directly to E. and L. How sweet is that?
15th December
I was preparing for Christmas while the girls spent the day at their grandparents. Both of them have a runny nose. I and my hubby are coming down with the same illness. At least we’re done with it until Christmas. (Fingers crossed)
I was lucky enough to buy white and silver lackmarker with which I’ll be able to decorate out Days of December album.
16th December
L. was really early bird, got up at 5, I managed to keep her quiet and in bed for an hour, hoping for her falling back to sleep but she didn’t. So we started cooking together. She woke up talking to me English. What a nice start, only if it had been at about 8.
When E. got up we prepared her best friend’s present for Christmas. She wanted to save the tatoo for herself, and of course, I needed to apply some body art immediately for both of them (Actually this was L.’s first tattoo ever.)
What’s more, we found some self-adhesive earrings. The girls got all pretty when they went to the library with their Dad.
In the afternoon we went out to buy infrared heat lamp as we are not getting better as for our health. And of course, we just couldn’t miss out on the choo-choo train in the shopping mall.
Late at night I put together the yearly photo book gift for the grandparents.
17th December
Literally, nothing happened today apart from lighting the 3rd candle. Well, it not totally true. In the afternoon I went to meet my friends. A little bit of me time is a big thing around here.
18th December
We went on creating more Christmas gifts, like this pine cone Christmas tree.
Two small snow globes were waiting for the girls in the advent calendar.
We read Maisy makes gingerbread about 15-20 times. Little L. loooooves it.
E.’s bedtime story was Angel Mae:
19th December
In the morning we “had to” make some more gingerbread. It was a family project. In the making Daddy needed to read Maisy makes gignerbread a few time. L. matched her rolling pin to Maisy’s.
As E. is into the periodic table again (I’ve already written a few words about her craze for the chemical elements in the post when she celebrated her 5th birthday) she and Daddy made the letters for the elements and Little L. and I were making more Christmassy gingerbread.
Today was the Christmas party in the kindergarten. We just went to give the presents to E.’s kindergarten teachers. We didn’t stay for the party due to our viral illness.
We also met E.’s best friend and gave her our Christmas present too. She also got some surprises for E. They played a little outside but it was terrible cold so we soon said our good-byes.
As we got home we finished the ring holder presents for grandmas and prepared our door wreath.
The girls used their second waterbomb at bath time.
20th December
The angels decorated the bedrooms with lights and window decor while the girls were away.
I started to prepare our very first home-made Christmas candy. (If I have time I’ll add the recipe later on)
21st December
Our cleaning lady was here today and we gave her our Christmas present. The girls got 2 beautiful baubles from her.
E. is into the periodic table again. We were listening to it all day instead of Christmas music.
In the evening we finished the Christmas candies with E. We dipped them into hot chocolate and put them in the fridge. There are 50 of them altogether. In the meantime L. was riding on Daddy’s back.
Our mistletoe is hung finally, and there’s been a lot of kissing under it.
22nd December
We celebrated Christmas with my best friend, B., who talks to the girls English only. It was a fun party with really nice presents. (a clever bug, jewellery boxes, snug slippers, just to mention a few) . Below: Clever bug called Cutie came to have lunch with us. She eats only fruit as she’s allergic to veggies – according to E. 🙂
B. got here quite early, so she and E. helped me to wrap the Christmas candies. Just like my Mum.
And we tested them too. Yum!
23rd December
In the morning we made pizza.
In the afternoon Daddy took the girls to their training.
While they were away I was cooking the Christmas dinner. This year there’s no fish. E. and L. like it more or less, but we’d decided that I’d cook their favourite: chicken soup, and stew with noodles.
24th December
In the morning the final touches were done before Christmas Eve, cooking cleaning and decorating. The girls opened the last pocket in the advent calendar where they found the star (in 2 pieces) and stuck it on the top of our paper tree.
Later we played a snowflake matching memory game we’d accidentally found.
While the kids took their afternoon nap the Angels brought us our gorgeously decorated Christmas tree. Nobody could enter the living room, where the Angels were working, until the sound of their bells.
While we were waiting for the jingle we made chestnut balls for dessert and got dressed in pretty clothes.
Around 5 o’clock the door could be opened and the kids were amazed by the sight.
The whole evening was about opening presents, playing together and having a wonderful Christmas dinner. According to E. this Christmas is not simply great but divine.
She said the best present was the chemical element cards, which she immediately put out according to the periodic table.
Linda loved everything she got she didn’t know what to play with suddenly. Maybe her very favourite one on Christmas Eve was the little pink scooter.
25th December
We celebrated Christmas at my mother-in-law’s place.
26th December
We celebrated Christmas at my Mom’s. Finally I could have a good use of my new camera.
27th December
The girls’ Godparents and their kid came over in the afternoon so we could surprise one another with presents.
28th December
E. went to the Helen Doron School for a one-day winter camp, where she had English sessions, arts and crafts, film watching all in English. Her favourite activity was making this bird feeder out of pine cone, peanut butter and seeds. As we don’t have a garden we hung it in the park near to our flat.
29th December
LITTLE L.’S 2ND BIRTHDAY PARTY.
In the morning we went to buy balloons for L. with E. We were in English and the lady in the party shop was amazed that E. understood both languages.
On the way we checked out the bird feeder and this scene waited for us:
The seeds had nearly been eaten up
We saw a robin, a finch and a blackbird that suddenly took wing as we were getting closer.
Update——-09.01.2018—-
We went to see the bird feeder with Little L. and we saw this:
Few seeds left, even the peanut butter was gone too
At nap time I picked up L.’s birthday cake (dairy and egg-free chocolate cake because of E.’ diet) and decorated the flat for the afternoon birthday party. It was just for our extended family.
Little L. was amazed by the balloons and all decoration but she was over the moon to see presents again, I’m not sure if she understood why there were so many gift at this time of the year (St. Nicolas Day, Christmas and now her birthday)
30th December
We were playing and playing and playing in English with all the toys and games the girls received for Christmas and L’s birthday.
31st December
A quiet New Year’s Eve. The girls cannot stay up until midnight so we celebrated in the evening with New Year’s Eve activity, sparklers and balloons in the bath and paper trumpets. They went to bed at about 9.30 and fell asleep immediately.
Sticky board notes in connection with the new year
HAPPY NEW YEAR FOR EVERYONE!
I wish you all the best, loads of second language exposure, fun and happiness in 2018.
The winter workshop took place in the middle of November, before Thanksgiving, so that we could cover some Thanksgiving crafts apart from Christmassy and winter activities.
The workshop aimed to help mums with winter fun ideas, whose kids are about 2-3 years old, but 4-5 year-old children would find them enjoyable too.
There were 4 major topics that we covered (and this time we managed to cover them all)
Thanksgiving
Santa/ St. Nicholas
Christmas
Winter
I’m not writing about the details only the ideas I shared. if you have any questions about the activities please do not hesitate to contact me either in the comment section or via email: nonnativemommy@gmail.com
This time I got some photos from the mums taking part in the workshop. Thanks!
I made this free printable so just click and print it. Colour it with your child if you wish and glue a cotton ball on Santa’s beard every day until Christmas. As we celebrate on Christmas Eve there are only 23 places to stick the cotton balls on.
(I can’t find what we made so I have no picture of it. Here is a photo of the original source I’d found the idea at and you can go and have a look at it if you click on the link above)
Paper plate Christmas door wreath
Originally I planned it with pompoms but we prepared it with pasta. I would have gone for a red base but E.’s choice was orange.
I prepared this colour matching activity that you can download on the link above. You just need some coloured buttons, pom poms or M&Ms to place on the printed buttons of the Gingerbread men. A simple colour matching task.
The last figure is left empty to draw coloured buttons of your child’s choice or use it as a play dough mat if you want to take further on this activity.
Other winter crafts
Cotton pad snowman
Decorating mittens
(We did mot finally make this activity but here is the link where you can see the details) UPDATE: We made the mittens (among other activities) after reading the lovely book The Mitten by Jan Brett
In Hungary we have a special day called St. Nicholas Day on the 6th December. St. Nicholas (=Mikulás) is depicted like Santa Claus and more or less they are very similar legendary characters.
As Mikulás is a big day for Hungarian kids, our local Helen Doron school also organised an event: meeting Santa on Saturday (6 Dec). Alas, I left the camera and my phone at home as we were in a hurry to leave for the school, so all the photos were taken with the HD school’s camera.
10-12 kids signed up every half an hour on the big day. (FYI: Financial contribution of the event was 500HUF/family). When we arrived the previous group was in with Santa so we had time for some snacks, cocoa and some crafts. It was very simple but a lot of fun activity with a cardboard ring, some black circles, white hearts and some orange scraps. Our teacher, Zs. was preparing the materials and helping the kids with the crafts. And what did we make out of them? This door wreath of penguins:
Then our time came to go in Santa’s room, where Santa was sitting on the sofa with a thick book. In the corner there were some props for a Christmas story. The starry sky, a stable with a new-born baby in the manger.
Santa read out the story of a tiny, sad star, called Starlet, who grew big and hot when she needed to give light and warmth to Baby Jesus. The story was read in English, one of the HD teachers’ (Z.) partner played the role of Santa. Although his English wasn’t perfect, but good enough for the occasion.
After the heart-warming story, the kids needed to sing (together) a Christmassy song for Santa (luckily with the help of the HD teacher – Z.). We sang “We wish you a merry Christmas”. E. was really quiet, so I whispered into her ear that she needs to sing louder, as Santa can’t hear it. Then she started to sing REALLY loudly. She took it seriously and she was so cute.
Next, Santa pulled out tiny presents for the children (szaloncukor – the Hungarian traditional Christmas candy and a tangerine) from his bag. We could take some photos with Santa and also the director lady (O.) took some (Thank Goodness!) so this is the only reason why I can include some in this post.
After meeting Santa, we went back to the crafts room to Zs., where we could eat some more or do some more crafts. A Christmas card this time. The reindeer inside are E.’s finger prints.
After having finished two Christmas cards, we thanked O. and Zs. for the nice and well-organised Mikulás party and left for home to tell Daddy all the exciting details about meeting Santa.
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Non-native Mommy 