DECK THE HOLIDAY'S

    In Scotland, Christmas is known as Nollaig Beag, which means "Little Christmas". The date for Christmas was one of the many holidays chosen to take the place of a pagan holiday. Instead of pagan winter solstice festivals. Christmas was celebrated. Christmas was celebrated as a primarily religious festival during ancient times, and continues to remain a primarily religious celebration today. Christmas was celebrated in Scotland until the Reformation. The celebration of Christmas was banned in Scotland in the 1600's. Protestantism had spread throughout Scotland, and Christmas was considered a Catholic holiday. Prior to the Reformation, Scots did celebrate New Years' Day, called "Hogmanay", which included many characteristics of Christmas.  Hogmanay is still a more important holiday in Scotland today than Christmas. Scottish Christmas Traditions, Decorations, and Foods    The Scots have always had a belief in the supernatural through the ages. These

How would your kids like a letter from Santa Claus this year? I've designed a simple template for Santa letterhead that can help you make the magic happen. Some ways you could put it to use: Your  Elf On The Shelf  could bring a letter back from his nightly trip to the North Pole. Use as a little extra convincing for curious little ones asking a few too many questions. Include a special note from the big man in your advent calendar. Use as a thank-you note for the milk and cookies on Christmas Eve. Tuck inside your favorite holiday book encouraging kids to go to bed. Attach to one of those "too big to wrap" gifts as a gift tag. Use as a gift certificate for grown-up gifts, like a special date for your husband or an outing with a friend.  DOWNLOAD | Grab the PDF file  here   or the JPEG  here . Print on any color paper. (I used a nice textured cardstock). Do your best at some jolly handwriting and you're done! I wouldn't stress about mailing

I'm pretty sure that just about every parent has whipped up a batch of homemade clay at one time or another. I think we've tried just about every clay recipe we've ever run across. Some are better than others and some just have different purposes. We have a play-dough recipe that stays soft and colorful for practically forever and won't dry out a long as you keep it in a zippy bag. We make a new batch from time to time and I think the making is as much fun as the playing when its done. Still, we had a difficult time finding a baker's type clay that we really liked. The typical salt/flour stuff distorts too easily and I wasn't fond of the texture. Some clays didn't dry well... they would crack or get grainy of just plain stink while they baked. Then we found this simple recipe and fell in love. I don't even remember where it came from... I have it scribbled on a piece of paper in the back of my recipe binder. Simple ingredients. It do