Christmas – Page 8 – Pollywog's Place Blog

Cocoa and Cookies

Published on December 8, 2023December 11, 2023 by Susie @ Pollywog's Place BlogLeave a comment

It’s that time of year when the cooler weather seems to make us crave some hot cocoa. We have set up our ‘Beverage Station’ at home and the kids asked for cocoa. It just happened that we had some packets in the cupboard so I added them to the assortment of things they could choose from along with some marshmallows in a jar for them to use.

These recipes would be great for taking along with you on a car ride to look at Christmas lights. Many of them could even be used to make Gifts in a Jar to give away for the holidays. These would even be good to sip and snack on while snuggled up with your favorite book on a cold winter evening… mmmm.

You can create some really wonderful memories with your kiddos or grandkids as well by letting them help to make cookies and cocoa… these would be memories that stick with them!

Here are some of our All-Time Favorite cocoa recipes:

Cocoa In A Crockpot

Hot Cocoa (Powdered)

Single-Serve Hot Cocoa

The Best Hot Cocoa

You could easily replace the sugar with another sweetener if you are trying to eat healthier.

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Getting Ready for the Holidays Week 8 (3 Weeks Before Christmas)

Published on December 4, 2023September 16, 2025 by Susie @ Pollywog's Place Blog5 Comments

This week we will be having our St. Nicholas Day celebration and putting up our Christmas tree and Winter decor so those will be our main focus but we also have our annual Polar Express party coming up so we will be focusing some attention on that as well. Here are some of the things that we will be working on this week:

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Creative Gift Wrap Ideas

Published on December 2, 2023November 28, 2023 by Susie @ Pollywog's Place BlogLeave a comment

I don’t know about you but my phone has been going crazy with notifications about packages that will be arriving as we just finished up the majority of our Christmas shopping. I have a huge black tote in my room that I am keeping the gifts in… yes, I believe they will all fit in the one tote this year.

Now, I have to figure out how to wrap them. I have a bunch of leftover paper from years past. There was a time when I liked to have things color coordinated and usually each kiddo had their own paper to keep things a little more organized as the tags seemed to get lost before Christmas morning. I have always seen the towers that people do with different figures and they look so cute but I don’t want to buy special paper for them.

I have an idea of just buying some fabric and making reusable bags but maybe making them so that they could stack and make these adorable gift towers… with our new 3-4 gift rule it might make this a real possibility!

Here are some cute pics of the ideas I have from Pinterest:

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Getting Ready for the Holidays Week 7 (The Week After Thanksgiving)

Published on November 27, 2023November 30, 2025 by Susie @ Pollywog's Place Blog5 Comments

Thanksgiving is over but there’s no time to rest yet as the real preparations are beginning for the holidays! One of the biggest things we need to do is to take time to sit down and evaluate how our Thanksgiving was. What was everyone’s favorite part? Was there anything that didn’t work well? Do you need to set up a rotating schedule to have dinner at other family member’s homes? (Odd year here, Even year there, or every 3rd, 4th, year?) Would it be better to have a potluck-style meal where everyone brings something? Was there anything you would like to do differently? Start now for your planning for next year so you don’t forget these ‘little things’! We will also be getting all of our Fall decor ready to be put away next week so we can start pulling out the Christmas decor.

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Getting Ready for the Holidays Week 6 (The week of Thanksgiving)

Published on November 20, 2023November 30, 2025 by Susie @ Pollywog's Place Blog6 Comments

Thanksgiving is almost here and I can’t wait! Over the past few weeks, I’ve posted about some of the things we are doing to help prepare our homes for the holidays and hopefully prevent a little of the CHAOS. We will continue to review those things and work on a few more things this week. Our list is as follows:

We will take a little extra time during our weekly ‘Home Blessings’ to make sure that everything is cleaned, windows are shined, and floors are swept, mopped, and vacuumed.
I will be checking my Holiday Planner for the timeline of things I need to do to prepare for Turkey Day. ex: defrost turkey, clean oven, clean kitchen, empty fridges, get out centerpieces, etc.
I will review the menu lists in my Holiday Planner so I can add all of the perishables to my weekly grocery list so I can get them purchased ASAP and not have to make a last-minute grocery run on the day before as things will definitely be CRAZY and many shelves may be EMPTY!
I’ll review my list of ‘make-ahead’ items and try to knock out a few of them so there will be less to do at Thanksgiving.
I will pull out some of those Thanksgiving activities that I found earlier and let the kids work on them while I work on other things. The kids will help with preparations when they can but there are some things that I just want to do myself.
If we have decided to do any Black Friday or Cyber Monday shopping we will review our planned lists and budgets.
I’m also trying to plan to do the 3 gift rule here this year but I’m not sure how it will go yet. I’ve got some links about this idea HERE, HERE, and HERE. This will hopefully encourage the focus to be more on Jesus than Santa and the gifts he will bring.

Most of all we will do our best to be thankful for all the family and friends that we have been blessed with and try to create some special memories with them during the holiday season! We pray that you and your family have a blessed Thanksgiving!