15 Ways to Make A Christmas Magical For Your Children

1) A big part of making Christmas special is just spending time with the kids. Go ahead, do a gingerbread house, decorate the Christmas tree, take them to look at Christmas lights. Everything helps.

2) Tradition. With my family, the kids get new pajamas Christmas eve to wear, but it could be a certain Christmas book or a special movie you all like to watch together. Starting a tradition can lead to some of the best memories you'll ever make.

3) Recently, I found this great site called Reindeer Cam (http://reindeercam.com/) 24/7 you can watch Mr. and Mrs. Stix, two wonderful reindeer, live in their pen. Usually an elf comes out to feed them, but right now SANTA comes to feed them three times a day! Also, if you send them a letter, you can get your child's name up on their "Nice List," which is a little electric sign that hangs on the barn. It's fantastic when Santa waves at your child, and it's completely free! I can't wait to show two of my siblings, Maggie and Walt. They're gonna love it!

4) This year, I also become acquainted with a little guy called the Elf on the Shelf. The premise is simple, Santa sends out an elf to every house to help him keep track of who is being naughty or nice. Every night, the elf goes back to the north pole to do his report, and every morning the elf is found hiding in a crazy place! I'm so excited to do this with the kids this year!

5) Watching Christmas movies. Watching Christmas movies with my family has become one of my favorite things about the season. There's something truly amazing about gathering together all in one room and just enjoying each other's company. Some of the best ones to watch with kids (in my humble opinion) are the Polar Express (I love the moral in it. You come away feeling like you really learned something,) Elf with Will Ferrell, who is one of the funniest guys of all time, and, an all-time classic, The Christmas Story (I like this one because everyone can relate to the hectic family trying to make it through Christmas. It puts a funny light on the stresses we all have to go through every December.)

6) Take them to spend time with their elderly relatives. Maybe they won't understand the significance now, but years from now they'll be really glad they had the opportunity to.

7) Teach them about what Christmas is really all about. Even if you're not super religious, go to church Christmas Eve, or at least read them a book about it. CHRISTmas, isn't about getting gifts or eating food or any of that, it's a Christian holiday.

8) Decorate the Christmas tree together. This is definitely one of the things kids love. They get to feel like they're really DOING something for the family, not just shoved aside so the adults can do everything.

9) Sit down and write a letter to Santa together. It reaffirms their faith in the big guy and it gives you ideas for what they might like for Christmas. Whoever thought of this is brilliant. Oh, and make sure you write one too. And before you mail them, write down what the children want on another piece of paper.

10) Donate some of your time to a charity. Even if money is tight this year, your church usually has something you can do, or you can find a shelter, or you can find a place they feed the homeless. Or, better yet, you could feed the homeless yourself. My Key Club at school did a huge burrito making party, then they all went around and gave them to people on corners asking for food. You never really appreciate a meal until you see someone who has had to go without.

11) Write some Christmas cards. Even if they're just the cheap pack from the Dollar Store, people genuinely appreciate getting one in the mail, and relatives (especially ones too far away to see very often) adore getting school pictures of your kids in them.

12) Use the Official NORAD Santa Tracker. On December 1, you can start tracking Santa's planned progress across the globe. It really helps with the "How can Santa get to all the children?" questions.

13) Make Christmas cookies with your kids. Or at least some kind of treat. Whether you give them to family and friends or keep them all to yourself, time in the kitchen around Christmas is definitely fun, easy family bonding time.

14) If you happen to be in a place where you get a white Christmas, go out and play in the snow. Bundle up super warm and build a snowman and have a snowball fight. Not only is it gorgeous, but kids get so excited to be playing in the snow, and you can get some great pictures, too!

15) Most importantly, just have fun with your kids, because they'll be gone before you know it.

Instant Sore Throat Cure

So, I've had a really bad sore throat for the past few days. Not fun at all. Then this morning, I woke up hacking up a storm and when I tried to talk, I sounded like my friend. That's a man. I was miserable.

An hour later, I found an all-natural recipe online for a tea that was supposed to help sore throats (and hey, it tastes good too!) At first I was skeptical but since the ingredients are cheap and easy, I figured, "Hey, why not?" As it turns out, this stuff is magic.

-1 Cup Water
-1 tbsp Lemon Juice
-1 1/2 tbsp Honey

Warm the water until a little hotter than drinkable. Add lemon juice and honey. Mix well (or else the the sweetness of the honey will be at the bottom and you'll try it and it will taste like lemonade someone forgot to put the sugar in.) Enjoy!

Instant relief and it tastes really good. I made two of these in a row and they made my sore throat feel better and (bonus!) I didn't sound like a guy anymore.

2 Ingredient Pumpkin Cookies

TWO INGREDIENT PUMPKIN COOKIES
(soft, easy, and perfectly pumpkin-y for when you're in that fall mood)

Ingredients;
15 oz Can of Pumpkin Puree
1 Box Mix of Spice Cake

Mix ingredients together until there are no more lumps (won't take long.) Drop by tablespoon onto a cookie sheet. Bake at 350 for 15 minutes. Take off pan immediately (no waiting) and let cool. Enjoy!

Sounds simple? Sounds easy? That's because it is. I made these last weekend and they were phenomenal. Besides that, the dough tastes EXACTLY like pumpkin pie filling and there's no egg so you can eat it.

The Black Cat (a short story)

            

           The black cat’s tail swished as it watched the dark form of a man creep into the barn. The knife in the man’s hand flashed and the cat’s green eyes shone in the shadows. The man had always liked cats as they shared traits he valued himself on; silent as the grave and guiltless. Both the cat and the man could hear the soft breath of the young couple sleeping in the lofts, which was why the man was there in the first place. The man made barely a noise as he strode toward the ladder leading to Emma, the loveliest highborn girl in the town, and Will, her secret stable boy love. The cat stared, emotionless, at the last moments of their lives.

            The man was now on the second story, barely ten feet away from Emma and Will. No one in that barn knew that there were three human lives taken that night; Emma’s, Will’s, and their unborn baby’s. No one knew that the man would go back out into the night and think about this murder only once as he burned the letter that told him who to kill and where they would be. No one knew that letter came from Emma’s best friend, who was in love with Will and forgot to tell the man not to kill him.

            Now the man was there, the knife raised high above his head. The cat walked to the barn door and looked back as the man brought the knife down. To the cat, this was just nature. Emma had fed it for the past two weeks so it had stayed but now Emma wouldn’t be saving scraps for it. The cat strode into the darkness and went looking for a place to get its next meal.