December 10th - Make Santa beards

Today we used shaving foam to make Santa beards.

December 9th - Snowman Ballet

Today we went to see the delightful snowman ballet with its breath taking flying scene.  P loved seeing Father Christmas and was on the edge of her seat waving to him!

December 6th - Ickworth's Christmas Sparkle.

Today was St. Nicholas Day so the Elf managed to hide in among some shoes with some chocolate goodies for the girls.

 We then went to Ickworth where Father Christmas is amazing!  They have had some problems with flooding so their grounds weren't as amazing as last year but I did love the topiary reindeer (he even had a red nose although I failed to get a photo of it lit up at night!)

 We enjoyed paper crafts!  I am so useless but lucky I and G were on hand to help P.

 Then we went downstairs to find Father Christmas.  We visited his bedroom - but the girls were disappointed not to make sweets this year!

 Father Christmas was amazing - he clearly loves Ickworth!  Well worth travelling to visit him!

We came home and read Father Christmas by Raymond Briggs.

(P loves this book and it is one she keeps coming back to)

December 5th - Winter Lights

Today the Elf was in P's room.  I think he must have brought back some snowballs from Lapland!  

We started the day by going to Cambridge Maths Circle at the Centre for Mathematical Science, which is run by volunteers from the Cambridge Faculty of Mathematics and was lots and lots of maths puzzles to solve!  This was the first time we have been to this free but bookable event!  We had lots of fun from solving the Tower of Hanoi to making a 100 square!  

We then went to the normal ballet, gym, swimming AND spent a happy hour at the Mill Road winter 

Fair. where we watched morris dancers, looked at there food stalls and visited the mosque!  


Then this evening, we went to Anglesey Abbey for their Annual Winter lights! Highlights were the amazing colour changing silver birches, the shadow dance whilst eating pulled pork buns and drinking mulled wine / hot chocolate, the stunning lode, the entertainers and the 

amazing light at the end!  

December 3rd - Make paper chains

Using pre-made paper chains from Baker Ross, the girls had fun making the chains. I also managed to get in some maths - who can make the longest? shortest?  How many more would you need to make it as tall as X?  How many links have you used? etc

December 2nd - Eat dinner by candlelight

Today we ate dinner by candlelight.

Advent 1 - Open Advent Box

The girls woke up excited to open their calenders... although slightly disappointed they haven't a chocolate one!

The book advent was:

A short but sweet retelling of the Christmas journey fro the point of view of an owl following a star.

We also read the book that came with our Elf on the Shelf!    

The girls had to open the advent box which contained our nativity scene which they set up, our (very few) Christmas decorations and some fairy light for their bedrooms.  

They also had a hunt for some chocolate snowman which the Elf had hidden round the house.