Holiday Activities

Christmas is just around the corner – we have compiled a selection of activities and ideas for you to enjoy over the holidays. 

What to do during the Christmas holidays! by Donya 6J

If you ever find yourself bored during the Christmas break, I’ve got some brilliant ideas for you! How about building a gingerbread house with your friends and seeing who can make the best one? If you’re lucky enough to have snow in your back garden or front yard, you could build a snowman - or even better, have a snowball fight with your family!

If that doesn’t appeal to you, why not organise a Christmas bake-off with your whole family? Even better, you could have a tree-decorating competition. One of the best activities is going ice skating with your cousins - just make sure to bring a guardian and be careful!

If you’d prefer to stay at home but still want to have fun, keep reading. Gather your family and see who can create the ugliest Christmas jumper. Finally, you could have a cosy movie night with your family and watch festive films like The Grinch, Home Alone, Klaus, or Scrooge. There are so many great options to choose from!

Hope you all enjoy your Christmas holidays!

Christmas dessert recipes! by Donya 6J

Gingerbread men! 🍪

For this recipe you will need brown sugar, eggs, flour, baking powder, ground ginger, black treacle and cinnamon for the spice.

Step 1 - Cream the butter and sugar, then add egg and vanilla extract. You can use a stand mixer, or hand mix.

Step 2 - Beat in the black treacle. - it will then turn into a deep golden brown colour. 

Step 3 - Beat in the dry ingredients in 4 equal batches.

Step 4 - The dough will be soft and sticky at this part. - a little bit like clay - and should stick together when you press it together.

Step 5 - The dough is quite soft and sticky so put it in the fridge for at least 5 minutes for it to firm up.

Step 6 - Cut the dough in half so you have one half to work with while you return the other half to the fridge to keep it cold.

Step 7 - Roll the dough out between two sheets of baking paper/ parchment paper.

Step 8 - Cut out the gingerbread man shapes. Then press down firmly to cut out all the way through the dough so they lift out cleanly. ( if needed, clean the edges) 

Step 9 - Peel off the excess dough from the gingerbread men. 

Step 10 - Transfer the shapes to a baking tray using a palette knife or a large kitchen knife.

Step 11 - Place on a baking paper/ parchment paper lined tray and adjust the shapes and tidy the edges if needed. (Use a butter knife for a lower chance of the cookie breaking because it’s soft still)

Step 12 - Bake for 12 to 14 minutes for a golden and slight crispy cookie. The cookies will come out soft, but will get crispier as they cool down.

Step 13 - The best icing to use in this case is royal icing. You can make intricate little details and it’s perfect for doing swirly lines or smiles on the gingerbread men.

Step 14 - Get a pack of gumdrops or M&M minis, (the M&Ms can be any colour. The most festive colours would be red and green) and make 2 dollops of icing on the front of the cookie, and place 2 gumdrops on it. After that, make swirly lines outlining the cookie and put a smiling face on the cookie. 

Christmas tree cookies! 

Ingredients: 250g of butter, 125g sugar, 2 tbsp of vanilla extract, green food colouring , 375g plain flour.

To decorate: 150g of icing sugar, star shaped chocolates, assorted sprinkles or anything of your choice ! (I recommend chocolate M&Ms)

Method: 

- Preheat your oven to 160°c, then line to baking trays with baking paper.

- Put the butter and sugar into a large mixing bowl then whisk together with a stand mixer or by your hands until pale and fluffy.

- Add the vanilla extract and green gel food colouring and whisk again until well combined. 

- Sieve in the flour. Whisk again until the mixture comes together to form a dough. (You might need to pull the dough together with your hands because it’s crumbly)

- Roll the dough out on a lightly floured surface to around 1cm thick. 

- Cut a triangle from thick card and use it as a template to cut the dough into triangles.

- Carefully transfer to the baking trays then bake for around 15 minutes until golden. After removing from the oven, leave the cookies to cool on the bak ng trays for atleast 10 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack to finish cooling. (Be careful, the cookies are very soft and crumbly whilst still warm)

- While the cookies are cooling, get out the all the chocolate stars you want to put on your amount of cookies. 

- Once the cookies are completely cool, make the icing: Sieve the icing sugar into the bowl then add the food colouring with a splash of water. 

- Stir well until the sugar has dissolved and the icing is completely green.

- Add a little more water if needed to get the correct consistency of icing - it should be a thick paste suitable for piping.

- Spoon the icing not a piping bag with a thin round piping tip.( If you don’t have a piping tip, use a disposable piping bag or even a freezer bag, and cut off the tip.)

- Pipe a zig zag pattern onto each cookie to make a Christmas tree. Top with the sprinkles on sweets of your choice. 

- Finish each tree with a chocolate star, then leave the icing to dry and set.

Snowmen cupcakes! 🧁 ⛄️

Ingredients: 90g all purpose flour, 65g cocoa powder, 1 teaspoon baking powder, quarter teaspoon salt, 2 large eggs room temperature, 200g granulated sugar, 80ml vegetable oil, 120ml milk, 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract.

Vanilla frosting: 340g unsalted butter, 650g powdered sugar, 2 teaspoons vanilla extract, 2 teaspoons milk

To decorate: 2 mini marshmallows, black icing, sprinkles or sugar pearls, orange fondant

Instructions:

1 - Preheat oven to 325 fahrenheit(160 degree celsius)  and line a cupcake tray with 12 cupcake liners.

2 - In a bowl whisk together the eggs,sugar,oil and vanilla extract.

3 - Stir in milk then add in rest of the ingredients and mix until combined but do not overmix.The batter wont be very thick it would be sort of runny and thats okay.

4 - Pour the batters into liners and bake for 18-20 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Let the cupcake cook completely before decorating.

5 - (make the frosting): whip the softened butter for 2 minutes until it’s light and creamy. Mix in the powdered sugar gradually then increase the speed and whip for 1 more minute. Add vanilla extract an milk and mix again until combined

To decorate:

6 - Add a rounded dollop of frosting to each cupcake, and put a marshmallow on top slightly to one side.

7 - Draw faces and arms using the black icing, and make buttons with the sprinkles. Use orange fondant to sculpt a nose for each snowmen.

Christmas Crafts!! by Donya 6J

Snowman

1) Grab 1 empty toilet roll.

2) Place it up like a cylinder.

3) Paint it white and do a couple layers of paint.

4) Grab a piece of coloured paper and cut out a strip of it but not too long.

5) Put it behind the snowman and make sure the two pieces are in the front.

6) Put the two pieces as if it were an X and glue it.

7) Draw on some buttons and a face. 

Now you have a snowman!!

Grinch Face

1) Grab a paper cup and place it upside down.

2) Paint the cup green.

3) Once it dries glue some googly eyes.

4) Cut out a triangle that is a darker shade than the cup and glue it 1cm under the googly eyes for the nose.

5) Grab light green pipe wires,create a large V with flat lines at the end and glue it on the cup right above the eyes.

6) Create a U shape with another light green pipe wire and  glue it 1 cm under the nose.

7) Rip up some cotton balls and stick the fluff onto the very button of the cup.

8) Get any type of green fluff and stick it at the top of the cup for his hair.
Now you officially have a grinch face!!

Christmas books & movies to watch! by Indiya-Rae 5G

Want some ideas for Christmas movies or books? Well here they are!

Books:

Let it glow, The Christmas Club, Nutcracked, Hetty Feather’s Christmas, You Choose Christmas, Completely Chaotic Christmas of Lottie books, and the Christmasaurus. There are loads more for you to choose from as well!

Movies:

The Grinch, Home Alone 2, A boy called Christmas, Elf, Klaus, Jingle Jangle, Home alone, Arthur Christmas. There are loads more too! You could even do a movie calendar where you watch a Christmas movie every day in December starting from the 1st. 

Have fun reading the books and watching the movies! Hope you like them!