Don’t you just love this time of year? The buildup and anticipation to Christmas Day. I love Christmas and all the traditions we have associated with it as a family and I especially adore Christmas Eve traditions and sprinkling DIY magic reindeer food for the reindeers and their long journey.
Since the boys have been small we have always made Christmas Eve special. MadDad always takes Christmas Eve off and we spend the day together preparing for Christmas Day and then have a get together with our best friends and their kids before sprinkling our magic reindeer food on our drive before the boys do off to bed and hopefully to sleep!
Since we live in the sticks, we try and make sure that our reindeer food is animal safe, by using edible glitter and dyed sugar, but you can use regular glitter, oh and you never need buy reindeer food again as it is so simple to make.
How to make DIY Magic Reindeer Food
Ingredients
- Rolled oats
- Cake sprinkles or coloured sugar
- Edible glitter (Pound land currently have pots in for you guessed it a pound!)
- 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
Instructions:
As you are not making food, you don’t need to be exact with ingredients. So all I do is put the oats in the bowl and then the boys go wild with all our added extras!
How to colour sugar
To colour your own sugar is really simple and fun to do, you just put some cane sugar in a bag and add a 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 a 5 drops 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 to dry for 24 hours at room temperature or pop in your oven at its lowest temperature for 5 minutes.
If you dont 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
We place our Reindeer Food in clear cellophane bags as we want to be able to see all that lovely glitter and sprinkles and double fold the end down before adding a folded label and stapling closed.
Free printable Magic Reindeer food labels
I have an update on last years free printable magic reindeer food labels. These fabulous 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).
To save, right click on the image and then click save as..
Why not have a good old clean out of the cupboards and see if you or family have any cereal and cake sprinkles that are past their best before and use them for your reindeer food.
Do you feed the reindeer? Whilst we are talking about Christmas make sure you take a look at the TSB Christmas Guide.
Oh I love this – we always lave a carrot for them….but I like the idea of making them some magic food.
Such a magical idea for children at this time of year! A good tip about using edible glitter – even in the urban areas birds would likely nibble at this too!
I love this – what a neat idea to put down on Christmas eve!
This is so clever – simple and effective. Bet all kids would love getting involved!
Oh what a really lovely idea, I always wondered why the choice of food was one carrot for 8 reindeers! x
I really like the idea of making Christmas Eve special – for us it normally feels hectic – driving to my dad’s and trying to get organised. This reindeer food is brilliant though, my three would absolutely love it!
Syd is 4 this christmas, so at total peak magic age – which I fully intend to make the most of – adding this to the list!
I need to do this with the kids this year
We love sprinkling this out for the reindeer on Christmas eve, now we can make our own!
I love this, a friend has always given us our magic reindeer food but if I ever need any I know where to come x
I think the idea of reindeer food is absolute genius and far better than leaving a carrot!
I do love this idea and the fact it is edible too. Brilliant xx
These are beautiful! Very creatively done.