Looking for a unique Christmas tradition for your family? How about planting candy cane seeds? It is a family favorite in our home, and I’m pretty sure none of your friends are doing this one! You might want to hold off telling anyone about this until after Christmas is over though, or else they might steal the idea because it’s ‘so cute.’
Items needed:
- Candy cane
- Peppermint (starlight) candy
- Spoon (or other small digging device for a child)
- ‘Magic’ Santa dust (colored granulated sugar works well)
- Story-telling ability
This activity will take about 5 minutes to complete, but your children will love it (and you’ll love how happy they are the next morning). On Christmas Eve, give each child a ‘candy cane seed’ (peppermint candy) and a spoon. Take them outside and let them plant the candy cane seed in the snow, or the dirt if you’re not lucky enough to have snow. Next, let them sprinkle some of the magic Santa dust over each seed. Make sure to mention that the dust is magic, and that it only works on Christmas Eve. We tell our boys that Santa leaves us the dust each year for use the following year.
And now for the magic… After the children fall asleep, replace the peppermint candy ‘seeds’ with the candy canes to create the illusion that the seeds grew overnight.
Tip: You might want to leave the wrapper on the candy canes, because the colors tend to bleed into the snow if the wrapper is removed.
On Christmas morning, our boys always run right to the window to find out if their candy cane seeds grew while they were in bed. It’s a wonderful holiday tradition that is simple to perform, but provides many warm memories.
I hope it works as well for you as it does for us.
Happy holidays!
[tags]Christmas, Christmas Eve, Holiday Traditions [/tags]