Holiday parties are great fun and a tradition for many people. They can be a time to gather together with friends and family, and simply enjoy the holidays. The best holiday parties are those that leave the guests with a fond memory, and one way to do this is with fun and creative party favors. Try sending your guests home with any of these suggestions, and they’ll remember your party for years.
Mini Stockings: You can purchase these at most craft shops around the holidays. Fill them with chocolates, cookies, candy canes, or any treat you can imagine. You could also fill them with tea bags or candles. These little items are inexpensive, attractive, and festive, and will add ambiance to your party.
Baking: Bake up a few batches of your favorite holiday cookies or other treats and package them in festive bags. Attach the recipes used to make these cookies, if you can. Guests will appreciate being able to recreate these treats at home. You might want to avoid peanut products when baking, in case of allergies.
Engraved Glasses: If you want to spend a little more money, and are serving wine or champagne at your party, consider purchasing wine glasses or champagne flutes and having them engraved with each guest’s name. You might even want to add the date and occasion. These will last forever (or until they’re broken), and will give your guests something to remember you by in years to come.
Hot Chocolate: Most people will appreciate a mug of hot chocolate on a cold winter’s day. Pick out some unique holiday mugs and place packets of hot chocolate inside. Wrap the mugs in cellophane, tie them up with brightly-colored ribbon, and give your guests a warm party favor to enjoy when they get home.
Picture Frames: Frames are a useful favor for most guests. Try to find the kind that can be either hung on the wall or placed on a desk or mantle for added versatility. If you can, find holiday-themed picture frames, or decorate them yourself. Try adding the names of your guests for a personal touch.
Personalized Ornaments: This is a quick and easy way to make beautiful party favors that your guests will use when they get home. Simply purchase a set of plain holiday ornaments, either glass or plastic, and personalize with the name of each guest. You can even invest a little more money and get the kind that open up. These will allow you to hide a special treat or present inside. Consider replacing the standard wire hangers with pretty ribbon, perhaps with the date and occasion of your party. Your guests can immediately put this on their tree, and they’ll remember you every year when they decorate for the holidays.
These are only some ideas for creative party favors. There are many other things that can be used as holiday favors, such as holiday CDs or a small vase with festive flowers. Check your local holiday or craft stores for more ideas to make your party memorable.. Try sending your guests home with any of these suggestions, and they’ll remember your party for years.
Scent is a powerful thing. The right scent stirs the memory, relaxes the body, and creates a warm and inviting atmosphere. The holidays are a perfect time to use scents and aromas to create a festive feeling. The following suggestions can help turn your home into a holiday retreat.
Baking: One way to infuse your home with holiday scent is to bake some holiday treats. Try chocolate chip cookies, cinnamon rolls, apple or pumpkin pie, or even some fresh baked bread. If you don’t bake, you can purchase premade cookie or bread dough, or even oven-ready pies. Throw them in the oven and you’ll soon have holiday scents wafting through your home.
Candles: Not only does the glow of a candle offer a cozy atmosphere, but if you choose a scented candle, it can add a festive aroma to your space. There are hundreds of candle scents to choose from, but try picking something appropriate for the season. There are candles that smell like peppermint, baking cookies, pumpkin, apple, pine, and many others. All of these would work for the holidays.
Pine Tree: Your holiday tree, if it’s real, will already be giving off a distinctive pine scent. If you have an artificial tree (or artificial wreaths around your home), you can still enjoy this same aroma. Purchase a small bottle of pine essential oil and add a few drops to a cup of water. Place the mixture in a spray bottle and liberally spray your artificial tree. Essential oils can also be sprayed onto fabrics in various areas of the home, but be careful of delicate fabrics, as essential oils can stain.
Room Fresheners: All manner of plug-in air fresheners are available on the market today. These can be purchased in many holiday scents, and produce decent aromas throughout your home.
Potpourri: Any craft or holiday store will likely carry holiday-scented potpourri. This can be located in strategic areas of your home, and tends to be a more subtle way of creating ambiance in your house. For a stronger scent, invest in an electric potpourri burner.
Oil Warmers: Burners can be purchased which accommodate scented oil in the top well, and a tealight candle underneath. The tealight warms the oil and the scent spreads quickly through your home. These scents are often quite strong, so use the oil sparingly.
Room Sprays: Commercial room sprays are available at your local grocery store, among other places. These are good for a quick burst of scent, and are available in many holiday varieties.
Applesauce Cinnamon Ornaments: These are made with highly fragrant dough. Mix one cup cinnamon, one cup applesauce, and one tablespoon white glue. Roll out on wax paper, cut into holiday shapes, remembering to add a hole so you will be able to hang them, and let dry for twenty-four hours. Hang the resulting ornaments on your tree or anywhere you want scent. The scent may last as long as two years.
There are many other ways to bring festive scents into your home, including pomanders, fresh flowers, or burning wood in your fireplace. You could also try simmering some spices on the stove. Use your favorite aromas to bring the holidays into your home, and you will experience the season on a whole new level.
Parenting is one of the most difficult jobs anyone will ever have. It can be frustrating, disheartening, and sometimes even depressing. It may occasionally seem as if discipline has no effect, and you may wonder why you should even try. However, discipline remains a vitally important part of raising a child. Appropriate discipline teaches a child boundaries, instills a sense of right and wrong, and makes a child feel safe. And consistent discipline enables a child to accurately predict the consequences of their actions. All of this is essential to the mental and emotional development of your child.
However, disciplining any child is not easy. There are many mistakes that parents can and do make on a regular basis. These costly mistakes cause confusion, frustration, and may result in hurt feelings. The easiest way of avoiding the most common discipline mistakes is to simply be aware of them in the first place.
Don’t Lose Your Temper
Everyone gets angry. It’s just a fact of life. But displaying anger while you’re trying to discipline your child will inevitably lead to sending mixed messages and may even make your child fear you. Acting out of anger is the same as losing control, so it is important that you keep calm when disciplining your child. This means no yelling or screaming at your children.
If you know you’re about to lose control of your temper, take a break. Both you and your child might benefit from a timeout. Tell your child you both need five minutes to calm down, then come back and address the issue. An older child will understand this.
Follow Through
Empty threats will come back to haunt you. If you have a rule with a specific consequence, always enforce that rule and follow through with the consequences if that rule is broken. If you don’t, your child will soon learn that rules are flexible and you don’t always mean what you say. This will lead to an unruly child who always pushes the boundaries because she knows she can get away with it.
Mean What You Say and Don’t Back Down
If your child has asked for that cookie three times and the answer has been ‘no’ then the answer needs to remain ‘no’. Don’t give in to persistent pleas or whines for that cookie. If you do, your child will learn that all she has to do is keep asking and you’ll eventually give in. This will teach your child that ‘no’ actually means ‘not right now, but keep it up and I’ll give in just to get you to stop asking.’ Don’t put yourself in that situation.
No Emotional Blackmail
Don’t try to make your child feel guilty about breaking the rules by playing on her emotions. You’re not a victim of your child, so don’t play that role. Enforce discipline clearly and firmly without resulting to emotionally blackmailing your child.
Don’t Break Your Own Rules
The old adage “Do as I say, not as I do” doesn’t work with children. You are your child’s most influential role model, so follow your own rules. If you have told your child not to sneak cookies before dinner, then you’d better not be sneaking any either. They’ll catch you, and they’ll assume that the rules don’t apply anymore.
Don’t Change the Rules
A child is easily confused, so make sure the same rules apply each and every day. If you do have to change a particular rule, have a family meeting about it first. Don’t expect your children to follow unspoken rules either. If it’s not spelled out, it’s not a rule to a child. Make your expectations clear and keep those expectations consistent.
Resist the Temptation to Bribe Your Child
It’s often temping to give your child a little treat for behaving, but doing this on a consistent basis creates an expectation of more of the same. Eventually, your child will behave only when you have a reward in your hand. Enforce the rules without resorting to bribery and your child will learn to motivate themselves to follow existing rules. This will, in the long run, lead to a child who behaves most of the time.
Be a Parental Unit
Unless you’re a single parent, you probably aren’t disciplining your child alone. Get together with your partner and come up with a set of rules you can both agree to and enforce as a unit. If you can, plan how you will react to certain situations and stick to the plan. If you encounter a situation that needs discipline, discuss it with your partner first, if at all possible. Just don’t do this in front of your child or she might learn to play one against the other, and that’s never a good situation to encourage.
Don’t Delay
Children have a very short attention span. If your child breaks a vase at 9am and you don’t get around to disciplining her until 4pm, too much time has passed. Deal with situations as immediately as possible. If more than five or ten minutes have passed, you’ve probably missed the opportunity to effectively discipline your child. Younger children have even shorter attention spans, so get to it quickly.
Lectures Aren’t Necessary
Discipline shouldn’t take all afternoon. Be clear and concise when enforcing discipline to avoid confusing your child. Remember that the younger the child, the shorter the attention span. Get it over with while your child is still paying attention if you want to be an effective parent.
Disciplining your child isn’t an easy thing to do. But if you speak to her clearly and concisely and show her that her actions have consequences, she will soon learn to obey the rules. Be open, caring, and a good role model and you can avoid some of the more common disciplining mistakes and create a stronger, healthier relationship with your child.
From the moment you realize you’re pregnant, you start thinking about your baby. You’re anxious to learn all you can about your newborn and how he or she will develop. You buy all the books, visit all the websites, and talk to everyone who will listen to you.
Then you bring your child home from the hospital and you start to watch and wonder. You’re never such what’s “normal” for your baby. As your child grows physically, mentally, and emotionally, he or she will begin to develop new skills and abilities. Your baby will smile, recognize you and other family members, and even start to talk. But when is all this supposed to happen?
A baby’s development falls on a spectrum. It’s important not to panic if your baby isn’t crawling by seven months. Children develop at their own pace and most children will eventually catch up. If your baby is on the far end of the spectrum and you’re worried, speak to your pediatrician. A qualified doctor can usually assess your child for developmental delays. However, most children will develop all of the following skills.
0 – 6 Weeks
Newborns don’t do much. They’re too busy adapting to their new environment. It’s hard going from a warm, safe, dark womb to the bright and cold surroundings of the outside world. Your baby will squirm as he or she learns about the body they can now move freely. Your child may also grimace or smile, but this is usually due to gas.
Babies in this age bracket tend to respond on instinct. Most of what they do is based on survival. The mouthing reflex, for example, is an instinct designed to allow the baby to feed, as is the ability to latch onto a nipple. These responses are based upon certain stimuli, but they are not cognitive abilities. A baby’s cognitive abilities will begin developing at around the 4-6 week mark.
6 – 8 Weeks
Babies in this age range start to look around and focus on many different things in their environment. Motor reflexes begin to develop, though they are still slow and very awkward. Babies at this stage are not very steady, but they do attempt to move their heads around.
At around 6 weeks, babies begin to truly smile. Your child may greet you with a smile when you enter a room, and may attempt to turn towards the sound of your voice. Though his or her social circle is still limited to parents and perhaps other very close relatives (such as a sibling in the same household), the baby is beginning to develop socially.
2 – 3 Months
By this time, the strength of a baby begins to grow exponentially. Your baby may start to rock back and forth in an apparent attempt to roll over, and may even begin supporting himself on his hands if you place him on his stomach on a firm surface. Generally by 3 months babies learn to roll over onto their backs, but don’t be surprised if your baby then finds himself stuck. Babies at this stage do not have the strength to roll themselves back onto their stomachs.
Socially, your baby will begin to recognize other people. Your child may start responding to a beloved aunt or grandparent, and may even giggle when “Grandpa” comes to play. Your baby’s social circle is starting to widen, and he’s beginning to realize there’s a wider world than simply his parents.
3 – 4 Months
By this stage, most babies have learned to control their neck muscles enough to support their own heads. This means that your own baby will be able to look wherever he wants. And he’ll usually want to look at whatever is the brightest or fastest moving object in the room. This is a good age to invest in a mat with activity bars dangling overhead, and your baby will finally show an interest in these types of things.
Your child is also learning some basic motor coordination. He’ll learn to control the movement of his hands and feet, and may appear to be attempting to crawl (though actual crawling will not occur just yet).
Children at this age are also learning how to play, and the basics of cause and effect. By about 3 months, a baby understands that if he shakes a rattle, it makes a sound. He’ll also start to realize that you’ll pick up anything he drops. This may become a game to him, as he tosses various toys and expects you to pick them up.
4 – 6 Months
This is a very exciting stage for a baby. Most children have greater control of their hands and necks, and begin to truly roll around, back to front and front to back. Many babies even learn that they can roll to get around, their very first attempt at mobility.
Children also begin to have ‘conversations’ at this age. They will coo or gurgle at you, expecting a response. While this conversation doesn’t make sense quite yet, it is your baby’s first attempt at communicating with you through language.
Socially, children of this age love to play games. Peek-a-boo is especially popular, as is This Little Piggy. He’ll also begin to make associations regarding his own body, so this is a good age to begin teaching certain parts of the body, such as feet, hands, and nose. Don’t expect him to catch on immediately, but he’ll get it eventually.
7 – 11 Months
For many babies, this is the stage where truly mobility is gained. Crawling or scooting begins, usually followed by pull himself up using furniture. But the end of this stage, most babies have learned to walk while holding onto furniture. Some may walk independently.
Independence first begins to develop in the second half of a baby’s first year. He might choose to look at a cloth or board book without your help, and may become frustrated if you do attempt to render aid. This is a phase where it’s important to respect his independence as he begins exploring his world.
Most children begin talking at this phase. They’ll use simply words associated with familiar items, such as ‘ball’, ‘Mum’, ‘cat’, and other easy words. To encourage this, use words to communicate with him, putting everything he wants into words. Don’t expect full sentences to come out of your child just yet. Linking words to items is progress enough.
12+ Months
Infancy is generally considered to end around the 12-month mark. After this, children are generally referred to as toddlers. A baby will begin walking right around now, and may develop a resentment of all those baby gates you’ve carefully placed around the house. He’ll also start using more words, and may even join two or three words together. They may not make sense, but it’s a start.
This is an age of frustration on the part of your child. Expect him to be annoyed when something doesn’t go his way. This is a normal and healthy part of development. Expect him to challenge you as he passes his first birthday. This is his way of learning what the rules of his world are, so be consistent.
The first year of a baby’s life is truly amazing. Your child will go from a tiny infant barely capable of moving to a toddler dashing through your kitchen. Spend this first year engaging your child, and remember that most of his brain’s development will happen during this year. Don’t waste this precious time with your baby at he learns who he is and his place in the world.
