Reindeer food is one of our Christmas Eve traditions and we love to make it as much as the boys love sprinkling it outside as treats for the reindeer. We have great fun each year making it for family and friends and this year I am excited to share with you 7 great free printable labels for you designed by The Purple Pumpkin Blog using the same designs as our Advent Acts of Kindness.
Traditionally it is just oats (oatmeal) and glitter, but, we live in a pretty rural area and we stopped putting glitter in our reindeer food a few years back to protect the local wildlife. Now we use other things to make it pretty and light the way for santa’s reindeer to our home when we sprinkle it on our lawn!
How to make animal safe magic reindeer food
This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase after clicking one of these links, I will make a small commission (hopefully enough to keep me in tea all year) – at no extra cost to you! This allows me to keep creating and sharing free tutorials and content for you. Thank you!
Magic Reindeer Food Recipe
- Rolled oats (uncooked oatmeal)
- Cake sprinkles or coloured sugar
- Edible glitter
- Cellophane bags
- One of our fabulous printable labels designed by The Purple Pumpkin Blog exclusively for Mum in the Mad House
- Stapler or double-sided tape or ribbon
We are not ones for measuring our ingredients so we place an amount of rolled oats into a bowl and then I let the boys loose with all the extras and stir it together. It is so simple to make magic reindeer dust and it is a fun Christmas eve tradition to make your own reindeer food. I mean we need our magic food to sparkle in the moonlight.
How to colour sugar
To colour your own sugar is really simple and fun to do, you just put some cane sugar or sugar crystals in a bag and add 5 drops of liquid food colouring to 1/3 cup of sugar and smush in the bag. Alternately for a really vivid colour add a few drops of gel food colour to 5 drops of vodka and then smoosh it around in the bag.
To dry the sugar lay it on a thin layer on a baking tray and allow it to dry for 24 hours at room temperature or pop in your oven at its lowest temperature for 5 minutes.
Instructions
If you don’t want to go to the trouble of colouring your own sugar, you can buy it pre-coloured in the shops or you could just add a selection of cake sprinkles to the oats to jazz it up a bit. I have also seen people add leftover sprinkles from Christmas cookies or cake decorating and you could even use marshmallows.
We then place our Reindeer Food in clear cellophane bags (well you want to be able to see all that lovely glitter, sparkles and sprinkles) and double-fold the top of the bag down, add a folded printable poem label and staple closed alternatively just gather the baggies together and tie with ribbon and add the magic reindeer food poem bag topper using a hole punch. Alternatively, you could use a clean baby food jar and add a ribbon and the poem to the jar.
Free printable Magic Reindeer food labels with Reindeer Poem
These fabulous reindeer food labels are been designed exclusively for readers of Mum in the Mad House by The Purple Pumpkin Blog and designed to be printed on to small photo paper (4 by 6, but you can also download them and print them off in multiples on larger paper).
Sprinkle on the lawn at night, the moon will make it sparkle bright, as santa’s reindeer fly and roam, this will guide them home.
Download your free printable Reindeer food lables
Reindeer Food Dark Red Candy Stripe
Reindeer Food Light Green Chevron
Reindeer Food light Red Hearts
Reindeer Food Med Green Snowflakes
Reindeer Food Stripes Reindeer
If you like this then check out our Snowman Soup (hot chocolate) how-to and printables, they make perfect gifts for a kids holiday party.
I love this tradition and the boys usually bring some home from school – but it’s good to know how to do it as they’d be so upset if they didn’t have any one year so thank you so much for sharing.
Love this idea! Never thought about making food for the reindeer. They do work as hard as Santa and deserve a treat also. Also Thank you for hosting a linkup!
Pingback: Christmas recipes For Kids - Fairy Bread - My Little 3 and Me
That’s a really good point about the glitter and wildlife! I can see a trip to Poundland coming on!
Lovely idea. We leave reindeer food out each year, I love the printable. Have pinned #Parenting-Pin-it-Party
Brilliant idea and I love the printables. Great to have an animal safe version so thank you.
We usually leave carrots out but have never done this. We are missing a trick here, so have pinned so we can try it too. x
Thanks for this recipe – we love sprinkling some food on the lawn (and tossing some up on the roof!) for Santa’s amazing reindeer. Now we can do it guilt-free. Love your little ditty too x
What a great idea – I totally think animal friendly is the way to go as well 🙂 x
What a lovely idea! although we’ve never left food for Santa’s reindeers since they enjoy a lot more eating the moss 🙂
Brilliant! We havent got a garden so havent done this and had not thought about the implications of putting it out with inedible contents, quite genius of you to have considered the reindeers stomachs!
This is such a lovely idea. I am sure kids would love something to lure Santa in 🙂
Love this idea, it has to be better than a mince pie or a carrot 😉 x
This is a really lovely idea!
Such a lovely idea – we have, sadly, moved on from Santa in our house, BUT its things like this that still keep the magic alive, even for the parents! Love the labels designed by Michelle as well. Thanks for linking up to the parenting pin it party too. Cheers, Helen
Brilliant – beats shop bought fake food!
Pingback: Hot Chocolate Santas - Teacher Gifts | The Sensory Seeker
Pingback: Gingerbread man bento - the-gingerbread-house.co.uk
This is a great idea, I’m considering the idea of this as an activity for the guests staying here over Christmas. Thanks for the idea!
Hope Fiona does this with us….. the kids will love it
Pingback: Putting together a Christmas Eve Hamper and other Christmas Eve Tradition - Mum In The Madhouse- Mum In The Madhouse
Pingback: Christmas, it is all about the presence not the presents - Mum In The Madhouse- Mum In The Madhouse
Pingback: Reindeer Food and Other Sensory Christmas Ideas | The Sensory Seeker