Reindeer Food

One of our annual traditions is to make "reindeer food."  It can be any mixture of things (we've used anything from oatmeal to crushed chips, to graham cracker crumbs to powdered sugar and chocolate chips).  But the most important thing is the glitter!  The reindeer need the glitter, sprinkled on our lawn on Christmas Eve, so that they catch sight of it in the moonlight and know that they need to stop with Santa at our house.

This year, our elf left a message for the kids one morning, asking if they were going to make reindeer food that day.

She set everything out that they would need -- right down to the bags and special tags.  She is one smart elf because this was also something on our Holiday Hopes poster that the kids could later cross off ...

Later that afternoon, we moved the table over and pulled up some chairs and were all ready to begin.

Lots of oatmeal.

Colorful sprinkles.

Sophia was kind enough to help Jimmy while he held his bag open.

Peppermint sprinkles were something that Christmas Catherine (our elf) found in the cupboard and made a nice addition to the mix.  We also had dried cranberries and chocolate chips this year.

Jack was an expert this year because he also made some in his classroom at the Christmas party.

Jimmy emptied a full bottle of sprinkles -- all the more shimmer and shine to add to the yard.

Sprinkling the food out on Christmas Eve:

Letting it fly!

I snagged the girls for a quick picture while we were out in the cold: