My new obsession - what I can make on the end of a stripey straw! Today it's Father Christmas!

Ingredients:

• Pink Marshmallows
• Icing sugar and water
• Plastic sandwich bag
• Desiccated coconut
• White chocolate chips
• Black icing pen
• Strawberries
• Straws

Mix up your icing into a bowl and dip your marshmallow. Coat the bottom third. Then dip into the coconut to make the beard. Dip the bottom of 2 chocolate chips in the icing and place on as eyes. Draw on pupils with the black icing pen. Leave to set on some baking paper so they don't stick. Push a straw into the bottom of the beard when dry.

(Big boy decided he needed to prod Santa's head with a straw. Poor Santa. Easier to just hold and dip!)

Cut the top off a strawberry and use a blob of icing to attach it to the top of the marshmallow. Pour a little icing into a sandwich bag and snip the corner. Squeeze a little on the top of the strawberry to complete the hat!

With the afternoons getting darker earlier, the opportunity to play in daylight in the week is getting limited! So here is something to play in the dark!

Shadow puppet writing.

Take a piece of tracing paper (we used baking paper instead!) and stick to the fridge with sticky tac.

Take your torch and shine it onto the paper. We used an iPhone app! Make your puppet shape and let your toddler draw around it.

The boys adored it and had a go at their own shadow puppet 'creatures'!

A great way to help refine your toddler's ability to trace and control a pen!

I followed this handy guide!

I love printables. I also love words. I say to big boy "use your words" a hundred times a day and even though our small boy still only has a vocabulary with a grand total of 2 words (at least one of them is Mama), I hope that both of them follow our family tradition at this time of year and say proudly "Compliments of the Season"!

It might take a couple of years for small boy!

Download your favourite colour scheme and print. Frame and place on a table or mantelpiece or use it as a background for Christmas bunting like me. I used some old string, Christmas tree decorations and some buttons I bought from a charity shop for 10p!

Compliments of the Season to all you lovely readers! Now where is that mistletoe?! xx

ps there are 7 colour ways for you to choose from.

Christmas Printable