A few days ago I shared a delicious Christmas Cookies recipe and D.I.Y gift ideas that make perfect Christmas gifts for teachers, neighbours, etc. Together with McCormick we are getting festive and sharing another gift idea and recipe along with a fantastic giveaway for All Mum Said fans. This one is perfect for not only adults but the kids too.
My kids love getting involved with cooking and we encourage them to try new things, invent flavours by mixing and matching herbs/spices and food. The kitchen is a place for creativity and vision. Which is why the idea below from McCormick is perfect!
Santa’s Festive Fairy Dust
This is a wonderful idea for the kids to get involved and get creative. They can create their very own magical fairy dust for Santa’s Christmas Cookies or make some fairy dust for their teachers. Simply add a teaspoon of four of your favourite spices into the bag, then follow this recipe. If making these as gifts just add a tag with the recipe on the back.
Santa’s Christmas Cookies
Preparation time: 10 minutes
Cooking time: 12 minutes
Makes: 42 cookies
Ingredients:
1 cup butter, chopped
1 cup caster sugar
1x 60g egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups plain flour
1 tbsp McCormick Festive Fairy Dust mix
1/2 tsp ground salt
Method:
1. Preheat oven to 180°c. Line baking trays with baking paper.
2. Beat butter and sugar in a large bowl until light and fluffy. Add egg and vanilla and mix well. Gradually beat in flour, fairy dust mix and salt until well mixed.
3. Roll dough into 1/2 tbsp balls and place on prepared trays. Flatten with a fork.
4. Bake for 12 minutes or until lightly browned. Cool Christmas cookies on baking tray and remove when cool. Store in airtight container.
*Christmas cookies recipe courtesy of McCormick. You can see more of the McCormick holiday cooking recipes here.
3x PRIZES UP FOR GRABS
Each prize contains: McCormick All Spice Ground 30g, McCormick Cinnamon Ground 32g, McCormick Cinnamon Sugar 60g, McCormick Cloves Whole 25g, McCormick Mixed Spice 30g, McCormick Nutmeg Ground 30g, McCormick Vanillin Sugar 65g, McCormick Ginger Ground 25g, Christmas Tree Cookie Cutter Set, Christmas Stocking. RRP $35.00 (Total prize pool: $105.00)
**As the winners are chosen based on skill and not chance; you will be sharing for 0 extra entries however I’d love you to share the giveaway with friends and family. Sharing is caring and karma loves kind people. **
If you want to enter more giveaways click over here.
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We have one main Kitchen tradition
Stock the fridges as much as you can! 🙂
Our tradition is, during prep time, “No one touches the Christmas ham except DAD!!” This tradition was started by DAD!!
Our Tradition is for me to have the puddings cooked by November and no one is to touch until Christmas Day
I don’t hide coins in the Christmas pudding, I hide them in the sinkfull of washing up. It’s the only way I get volunteers to wash the dishes.
Grandmas Christmas Triffle is always made on Christmas Eve as triffle always tastes better the nxt day…I think because the Brandy has soaked into the sponge finger biscuits….Yummmm!!
I have to make White Christmas slice every year I think I eat more of it then anyone else
Sugar cookies, gingerbread men, gingerbread house and lots of icing.
our main tradition at christmas is that you can eat whatever you want, whenever you want, as long as there are no leftovers 3 days past Christmas Day!
We bake shortbread shapes of stars and trees
Delicious and sweet, they certainly please!
Buttery, soft, and smooth as silk
We even leave some for Santa to have with his milk!
On Christmas Eve, we head into the city in the evening to get everyone really hyped on festivities. Come home, watch the carols and kids head to bed before Santa arrives. It’s a fantastic time of year!
My mum and sisters get together each year to make the Christmas pudding. Amid lots of laughs, storytelling and wine, it eventually gets cooked. The amount of sherry in it differs every year depending on the frivolity.
Our Christmas kitchen traditions start 3 months before Christmas when I make the cake 🙂
Then when the school holidays start we do Christmas baking, it’s a great way to keep the kids busy. We have a large family (12 kids and another due early January) so there are always lots of willing helpers/eaters.
On Christmas day itself I try to stay out of the kitchen as much as possible, so Christmas Eve is spent preparing salads/cooking chickens/slicing ham/prepping dessert. We live in Qld so a cold lunch is perfect and the kids love it- they tell me they look forward to what they call ‘the feast!’
Boxing day is always a lovely relaxing day here with the kids all occupied with their new things and so many leftovers that we don’t need to cook. I think this year given that I will be 38 weeks pregnant I will be putting my feet up as much as possible!
My Christmas kitchen traditions include baking all sorts of delicious treats for Santa and the reindeer on Christmas Eve, my daughter chooses the sweets and as a team we get baking and bonding! Santa is always satisfied as our efforts prove, no food is ever left the next day at our house!
Our christmas tradition is to have the roast on at least by 11 so we can have a late lunch and pick the rest of the day
We make Dried Fruit Ornaments by getting large pieces of different types of dried fruit, piercing a hole near the top of each one, threading a piece of string or ribbon through and then tie the end. They can now be hung around a small Christmas tree centrepiece for guests to help themselves to or to be purely admired. Use your imagination and you can hang them anywhere! Even hiding them around the backyard and house and making the kids find them. Not only is this fun for the kids but they get a healthy treat at the end of it!
Wow food at Christmas time is definitely a big deal in our house, everyone comes together to participate, my list could go on forever. If I had to pick just one favourite tradition it would be having pence still hidden in the pudding. My nan has done it for as long as I can remember! Like panning for gold every coin found is like a Eureka! moment!
Ours is that everyone helps to prepare. The kids love stuffing the turkey…not.
Probably the same as most family’s. The men sit and watch while the women clean up and wash the dishes.
My cooking tradition is to stay clear! My crazy mum and aunts are in there creating a whole lot of delicious chaos, i must only enter with my life at risk 😛
Cool as this little prize – Spices spice up your life…
Making Plum Pudding and Custard from the recipes my Nanna gave me, beats the store-bought stuff every time!
Making gingerbread with the kiddies- they just love being part of the cooking experience and most importantly, there’s a lot of voluntary sampling- for quality control reasons of course!
One of my favorite Christmas traditions is making a cookie recipe that my great grandmother made every year and someone in my family makes it every year. It is a very simple cookie and the recipes makes 9 dozen cookies which are all rolled and cutout with cookie cutters – so it is an all-day thing, but it is worth it. The cookies are very thin, crispy, not too sweet and very addictive. My family and extended family love them and with 9 dozen cookies, there are enough for everyone!
Creating cake pops every year,
Of Santa, snowmen & reindeer,
Everybody gets involved,
And the kids ‘boredom’ problem’s solved!
It’s traditional for me to make way too much food for Christmas, but it rarely gets thrown away. Everybody brings their big appetites with them.
The kids make Christmas biscuits each year with their grandma, using great grandma’s recipe. Sprinkles are everywhere but the house is filled with laughter and yummy gingerbread!
Our kitchen Christmas tradition is to take the kitchen outside…..we BBQ as much as possible, while enjoying our guests in the cool of the entertainment area.
We adore making Gingerbread men together as one of our family Christmas traditions. Yummy AND fun!
I have to eat left over caramel tart and ice cream for breakfast on boxing day!
My Christmas kitchen traditions include cooking and taste-testing together, eating and laughing together, and cleaning and tidying later!
Barbecued prawns, Australian Christmas must,
enjoyed with flies, lots of red dust.
Marinated lovingly in mum’s secret sauce,
forever a favourite, and pudding of course!!!
Recreating my nanas perfect Mince pies
My kids ALWAYS makes gingerbread cookies at Christmas. Truthfully, none of us really enjoy gingerbread, but it’s Christmas so we pretend we do!
We have a few Kitchen traditions, but my favourite is dividing a lions Christmas cake into four and decorating the individual cakes and then giving them away as gifts.
A couple of years ago, we started a Christmas Day Baking competition (the prize is getting your name embroidered on the ‘Christmas Bake-Off Apron’ by Nanny) – one year it was the best salad, one year it was the best ‘nibbles’ and last year was the best dessert. Everyone gets to vote, there is a lot of dodgy vote-counting, allegations of tampering with salad dressings and…a whole lot of laughs!!!
everyone must be out of bed so we can unwrap presents together, mum cooks the meal and dad cuts the meat and we all have to be happy lol
Desserts are my forte.
I go to my parents and Mum and I spend the day making Cannoli. Christmas just wouldn’t be Christmas without our special time together cooking (we make other things too, but Cannoli are the shining star!).
We have the tradition of making homemade egg nog Christmas eve and sharing a one wish for each person to achieve during the year…
Making jars of Christmas Fudge for all my family is my favorite tradition, but I can’t wait to create new Christmas traditions with my baby girl as she grows up. I hope to be able to make it a magical time of year for her every year, and to help her to learn the true meaning of Christmas Spirit.
We also have a leg of ham, Seafood, lots of salads and plenty of beer/wine and soft drink for the children. The one day of the year they are allowed to drink it.
On Christmas Eve we go to the Carols then off see all the gorgeous lights because a little bit of magic goes a long way
Making mini bacon onion and carraway seed stuffed rolls. So delicious. No one that doesn’t like them
My favourite Christmas tradition – homemade Christmas trifle- and the same crystal bowl of Nanna’s that my Mum used when I was a little girl – deliciousness and tradition all in one bite, or two, or three…
My kiddies and I love baking cookies to bring on the last day of school to share 🙂 We have been doing this Christmas tradition since kinder 🙂
Our tradition is to make the trifle even better than the year before, my sisters and I make our own and then everyone votes for the best!
We always have to have some sort of disaster. Last year it was the turkey catching on fire inside the hooded BBQ. Dad threw it out onto the back lawn to put out the flames. The dogs enjoyed their Christmas lunch!
Early start and be organised so you can enjoy the day!
Back when we didnt have much $$$ Christmas breakfast considered of uncut bread and a jam/marmalade chosen from the gourmet deli…each person got one choice…simple but traditional
Gathering up the ham bones to freze for yummy winter pea and ham soups
I love baking, especially to give as gifts at this time of year. Much more appreciated than store-bought gifts.
My tradition is that dad cooks all the food and I clean. I am the worlds worst cook. No one would eat anything I prepare.
I’m not a very coordinated Baker and my goods are never the prettiest however they are incredibly Delicious!
The Christmas meats, Turkey and Ham, cooking and glazing is the job Im always left with but I enjoy it and watching the eyes when they are resented
Our christmas kitchen tradition has just started this year actually. My daughter came home from school and said “Mum, we learn’t that advent calendars from all over the world, that if you leave a carrot in your shoe, santa will come for a visit and leave lollies”. So my daughter decided to put this theory to the test, and put a carrot in her school shoes, she checked every day and after a few days some lollies appeared, she was so happy to think that Santa had come and made her day, and said I am doing this christmas tradition every year:)
We have an ‘almond present’, a Danish tradition; whoever gets the almond hidden in the home made dessert get’s a a little gift :-).
The whole family congregates in the kitchen on Christmas Eve – we bake biscuits in Christmas shapes and mix up a whole rainbow of icing colours, then sit round the table decorating, laughing and making memories! It’s not about the perfect biscuit but who can ice the most creative, funniest or weirdest design… it’s great fun!
We have so many Christmas kitchen traditions I’m having trouble choosing only one. Years ago I made our daughters piano teacher a Christmas cake, and she loved it . That’s when I realised my children hate any food with dried fruit in it, it wasn’t that my fruit cakes were awful. So that’s where the tradition of giving Christmas cakes as gifts started. As the years have passed the people I give cakes to has grown, and grown. Think and hope the last cakes for 2014 have been baked, and my husband says we have made 35 kilos of cakes this year, a record for us. The hardest thing about making the cakes is lining the tins, it takes such a lot of fussing. My children are all grown up now, and they still hate fruit cake.
Getting together to decorate the Christmas tree and my little girl putting the angel on the top 😀