The week before Christmas is fabulously quiet in our home. We are mostly Christmas baking and shopping for gifts. An easy at-home activity with children that requires very few ingredients includes making Salt Dough Ornaments. 

Salt Dough Recipe

• 2 cups of plain flour
• 1 cup of salt
• 1 cup of water. 

Combine and knead until smooth. Roll out and cut shapes out with cookie cutters. Add a hole for a string with a stick or straw. Bake in the oven at low heat until thoroughly cooked, dry and hard. We used an oven at 130°c for around 2 hours. Once dried paint or add glue and eco-glitter, thread with twine and hang on your tree. 

We do activities like this outside on our deck. Manage the mess the best you can. 

The children can then see their creations on the tree and salt dough ornaments last for years. Make sure the children know they are ornaments and not for eating!

We also like to use a Felt Christmas Tree. If you are looking for one for next year, Etsy has lots of fabulous options. Ours is a couple of years old, similar here (US) (here AU) (here UK). These are lovely for children who want a tree of their own, the children can rearrange the decorations on the felt tree over and over.

Make sure you hang it at the child's height! Perhaps I should have put ours lower on the wall. 

We don't have many precious Christmas ornaments, we prefer one the children are allowed to touch. We use a Wooden Nativity Scene which is completely ok for the children to use and play with, our set is by Ostheimer (AU).

There are many child-friendly Nativity Scenes available, playing with sets like this allows the children to re-tell the Christmas story in their own creative ways.

We've been using Christmas Window Clings. Similar here (US) (here AU) (here UK). These are useful for children who like to play and reposition decorations, children can peel these off and reapply as much as they like. Otto (4yrs) struggled to apply the larger clings but loved using the smaller ones.  We've used Halloween window clings for 3yrs+ and as long as they are clean and stored well, they can last many years.

These are fun for windows and mirrors. I've also put a couple in the window of our Street Library. 

One of our favourite children's Christmas decorations is our Count-down to Christmas Blocks (UK sold-out) (similar AU). It's nice to have a visual count-down for the children, and like a calendar, the children can change it each day.

Please let me know your favourite, child-friendly Christmas decorations! 

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