Who doesn’t love Christmas!? Who doesn’t love counting down the magical days till the bestest time of the year!

I adore Christmas, can you tell? Not because of the presents, but because of the spirit behind the season. Family time, giving, jolly people, it all just WORKs for me!

The only problem with the countdown to Christmas is that it normally involves disgusting sweets in an advent calendar. I hate that part. I love the fun windows you have to open each day but not what you find in the windows mostly!

So, after a sparky friend gave me the idea, I decided to count down to Christmas with different activities and wholesome recipes, exercises to do at home etc etc..

I will add the posts as we go along, here are the first 8!

Hope you get some Christmas-ey inspo!

Sing with me..on the 1st day of Christmas my health coach gave to me:

Different (eco friendly and budget friendly) ideas for decorating your house!

1. Make a Christmas tree! Use sticks and wooden cut offs around the house. Cut them at different lengths and hang ornaments on the sticks! Rustic and pretty! The cost will also be minor in comparison to those huge fake trees! If you have stacks of books lying around, pack them into a huge Christmas tree!
2. MAKE popcorn and cranberry strings! Yummy and pretty! Use a needle and thread and enlist the help of your family members (old and young) to string popcorn and cranberries on. So pretty and totally edible (except the thread ofcourse hahaha, floss?)
3. Find a park and scrounge for pine cones, spray paint them or stick felt bobbles onto them. Even glitter! Hang them in your tree!
4. If you are a wine lover, save the corks (or ask all your winey friends), make a Christmas wreath with wine corks and a glue gun! Watch out, those things leave vicious burns tho! Buy red beads or save lids from milk cartons and paint them for even more savings!
5. Make ornaments out of wine corks! So cute! leave them as is or spray paint them. Ask your lil ones to paint them!
6. Use your baking goodies like cookie cutters and fairy lights to make super pretty Christmas lights!
7. Make reindeer with sticks and corks! SOOO cute!
There are oodles of ways to stay busy, make pretty things and upcycle goodies into stunning Christmas ornaments! Bonus is you don’t have to spend a fortune!
HAve fun and tag me in some pics!

Sing with me..on the 2nd day of Christmas my health coach gave to me….

Ideas for an ADVENT calendar!

Who doesn’t love a countdown to Christmas? Just without those nasty cheap chocolates filled with yucky nonsense. Here are a few of my favourite ideas for different (and healthy) advent calendars for you and the family!
1. Choose 24 books, wrap them up and number them. Open one per day and read it together as a family! I did this last year and it was spectacular! A little tip tho, if your kids are young, don’t do 24 books. They lose interest! Try do 10 day countdown maybe!
2. Buy gift bags, number them and add cute little goodies like health bars, organic dried fruit, lip ice, tiny perfumes or little lego with Christmas theme.
3. Buy a plastic shoe organiser. Buy pretty wrapping paper and numbers and voila! Each day you sift out your number and find a little goodie inside! YAY!
4. Buy plastic cups, spray them red or silver or alternate! Then fill them with yummy or interesting little things like raw unsalted nuts, tiny books, Christmas jokes, little survival goodies from places like due south and cape union mart! Fun fun fun!
5. Buy ice cream sticks, paint them different colours and write Christmas jokes on each stick. Here’s a link to some fun ones! http://www.jokes4us.com/…/christmasjokes/christmasjokes.html
6. Have an advent calender scavenger hunt. Each day is a new clue to a fun prezzi hidden somewhere around the house! Think in the lines of a cookie recipe, a DIY ornament kit..
7. Each day of the advent calender is a new ornament for the tree! Even more fun would be making your own ornaments each day!
8. Print of Santa Claus and number his beard, cover each number with a cotton wool ball that can be pulled off each day!
USe your imagination! The options are endless!

Sing with me..On the 3rd day of Christmas my health coach gave to me…

Fun ways to wrap Christmas prezzi’s that don’t cost the earth (literally and figuratively!)

1. Find brown paper, wrap the prezzi’s in brown or white paper and then decorate them with leave and sprigs from nature!
2. Use chalk paint to paint small squares on your brown paper and then write names and messages on! Use herbs as a pretty decoration (Rosemary and thyme are lovely!)
3. Use sticks and wool to make Christmas trees and stick these onto brown paper wrapping!
4. I love this one! Use brown paper or any colour paper, cut out Christmas shapes (likes stars, trees etc) fill the wrapping with tinsel or confetti and the gift, sew it closed! When they rip it open it’ll all come flying out! So pretty!
5. cut out name tags from brown paper and then dip one end into glitter or sand!
6. The Japanese use material to wrap their gifts! Use material cut offs or even buy some pretty tea towels to wrap up your girlfriends gifts, pretty and they can use it again!
7. Use newspaper to wrap the prezzi and the tear out fun pages out of old magazines and use them to make bows or decorations.
8. Cut out square tags of brown paper, then draw Christmas pictures on them and spice them up with some artsy additions like pom-poms or glitter, even crushed leaves..Use a colour piece of string or ribbon to attach the tag to the gift. Let the gift tag zoosh up the gift!
9. MY FAVOURITE one, if someone in your family has a good sense of humour..wrap their prezzi in paper and then rewrap over that with cable ties..it will take them ages and ages to unwrap their gifts and you can sit back and laugh and laugh while you sip some eggnog!
10. I set out brown paper and the kids paint and draw the wrapping! Personalized and fun for them

Sing with me..on the 4th day of Christmas my health coach gave to me…

The gift of giving!

We all have too much, look around..so many things! Things everywhere! We have a tradition we started two years ago with the kids, we infiltrate their toys. We choose items they have outgrown or don’t play with anymore. We then decorate brown paper and wrap each prezzi up, label it with gender and age group and we donate the prezzi’s to less fortunate kiddies in the town closest to us!
You could do the same. Find a children’s home, an organisation, anywhere that has less privileged kids and DONATE!
If your kitchen cupboards are bursting at the seams, if your clothing cupboard is going to explode if you put one more item in there..DONATE! Adults need love to!
So many have so little and the tiniest of items can make them smile!
DONATE!

The gift of giving…my favourite Christmas tradition

Sing with me..On the 5th day of Christmas my health coach gave to meeeeee

easy peasy homemade personalised ornaments! Don’t pay a fortune for ordinary ornaments! Get the whole family involved and make your own! Its so easy and the best part is you can personalise each ornament or make gifts for friends! Anyone can BUY a prezzi..handmade gifts always mean more!

You will need:
1 cup salt
2 cups flour
1 cup warm water
Mix all together to form a dough. Roll out onto a flat surface and start the fun! once you’ve cut the shapes, bake in oven at 100 degrees C for at least 2hours until nice and dry. allow to cool and then paint!

OR 1/2 cup cornstarch, 1 cup baking soda, 3/4 cup water. Mix into dough, knead and press into shapes. AIR dry! Then decorate!

Ideas
1. Cut out shapes and then press ever green sprigs into the ornaments.
2. Use cookie cutters with a Christmas theme and cut out shapes. Use a straw to push out a hole for string and once they have baked or air dried, paint them!
3. Roll out sausages of clay and fold them into a Christmas tree shape! Cut a star out for the top and stump for your tree. Bake or dry and then paint! Don’t forget to press out the hole at the top for the string
3. pretty white ornament with colourful string! Use a dainty knife and toothpicks to create different ornaments!
4, Use embossed rolling pins to roll over your cut outs. This gives a nice pattern to each ornament!
5. Cut out your shapes and then string them next to one another so you can hang them up! add buttons, glitter, paint..go crazy!
6. Make each person a gift tag with their initial or name on, next year they can hang it on their own Christmas tree and think of you!
Get creative!

Sing with me..On the 6th day of Christmas my health coach gave to meeee…

A long list of wholesome, Christmas movies to watch together as a family!

https://www.thedatingdivas.com/over-50-of-the-best-christm…/

Snuggle up with a bowl of stove popped popcorn (popped in coconut oil ofcourse with a dash of Himalayan sea salt) and enjoy some much need family time and a feel good movie!

Sing with me: On the 7th day of Christmas my Health coach gave to meeee

Delicious, healthy Christmas inspired smoothie recipes..

1. Mulled Apple Smoothie, you’ll need:
½ cup of organic almond milk
½ cup of ice
1 organic apple (peel on, washed)
¼ tsp cinnamon
¼ tsp ground cloves
Pop it all in the blender, and blend until smooth! Serve with a sprinkle of cinnamon.

2. SNOWBALL smoothie, You’ll need:
1/2 nice and ripe banana (the riper, the sweeter)
1/2 cup ice cubes
1/2 tsp organic vanilla extract
1 raw egg yolk
1 tsp raw honey or use 3 dates
1/4 cup fresh coconut
1/4 cup coconut milk
1/4 cup coconut water
Blend till smooth and save some of the fresh coconut for the topping!

3. Hot choc smoothie (warm and delicious)
You’ll need:
1 cup fresh spinach
4 unsweetened, pitted dates
1 tsp organic vanilla extract
2 tbsp organic, unsweetened cocoa powder
¼ cup oats
1 tsp chia seeds
1 cup boiling water
¼ cup cold water (optional)
Blend till smooth and enjoy!

4. Gingerbread smoothie:
you’ll need:
1 cup of Greek yoghurt or dairy free yoghurt
2 table spoons of raw almond butter
¼ tsp of ground cinnamon
¼ tsp ground ginger
1 tsp raw honey
¼ tsp ground nutmeg
¼ tsp ground cardamom
1 cup ice cubes
½ frozen banana

5. Eggnog smoothie:
1 cup yoghurt or kefir
2 very ripe bananas (make them frozen if you’d like your eggnog to be cold)
1 tbsp coconut milk or cream
1 egg yolk
2 tbsp raw honey or 2 medjool dates
1 tsp organic vanilla extract
1/8 tsp nutmeg
a pinch of cinnamon

6. Peppermint smoothie:
1 frozen ripe banana in pieces
1 cup almond milk (raw if applicable)
¼ cup of fresh mint leaves
¼ tsp vanilla extract (or organic vanilla bean paste)
1 tsp maple syrup or 2 medjool dates

7. Christmas cocktail smoothie
½ cup of coconut water
½ cup crushed ice
½ cup frozen cranberries
1,5 cup of fresh organic spinach (you can add an extra 1/2 cup for a brighter green)
1 ripe banana in pieces
1 tbsp raw honey or 3 medjool dates
freeze-dried raspberries and frozen cranberries for decoration

8. Plum pudding smoothie
2 cups almond milk (or milk of choice)
2 big ripe juicy plums
1/4 of a ripe pear
Flesh of 1 ripe fig (no skin)
1 ripe frozen banana in pieces
Zest from 1/4 of lemon (abut 1/2 tsp)
Zest from 1/4 of orange (about 1/2 tsp)
1 tsp honey -or 3 pitted medjool dates
1/4 cup almond flour
1/8 tsp nutmeg
1/8 tsp allspice
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp organic vanilla extract, or vanilla bean paste
2 tsp chia seeds
1 tbsp grated dark high quality dairy-free chocolate
Optional: pomegranate seeds to decorate

YUMMO!
Ho ho ho, smoothies are the way to go!

(Recipes and pics courtesy of thankheavvens.com with a few tweaks from me)

Sing with me: On the 8th day of Christmas my Health coach gave to meeee

A few chuckles with SUZELLE DIY…’How to arty your party’

A few great ideas for homemade decorations!
Hilarious