Holidays

How to Get Free Letters From Santa for the Kids

Make this Christmas magical with a FREE letter from Santa Claus for the kids. Kids will be thrilled when they get a letter in the mail directly from the North Pole. Good little boys and girls will love hearing what Santa has to say and what he will be bringing to their house this Christmas. There are several websites you can use to make your free letter from Santa. We also have some letters you can print out below and personalize on your own computer. Look below to find information on how to get your letter from postmarked from the North Pole.

Want to make your own personalized letter from Santa using just your own Word processing program? How about getting a postmark from the North Pole?

Here’s How:

Select one of our letters to Santa below.
Click on a letter and it will open in a new window.
Save the letter by clicking on the File menu and then Save (or CTRL + S)
Locate the letter that you saved and open it for editing.
Personalize your letter.
Print your letter using a color printer.
Put your letter in an envelope and address it to your child.
In the return address section of the envelope write: SANTA, NORTH POLE
Add a First-Class Mail stamp to the envelope.

Place the complete envelope into a larger envelope, with appropriate postage, and address it to:

North Pole Postmark
Postmaster
4141 Postmark Drive
Anchorage, AK 99530-9998

Hurry! Your letter must be received by December 15, 2015 to get it back to your house in time for Christmas morning.

If you don’t want to go to all of the trouble of mailing the letters to the North Pole, you could buy rubber stamps and stamp the letter and put it in your mailbox. Here are the rubber stamps we found on Amazon.

How to use our Free Letters from Santa

Click on a letter and save and when you open it in your word processing program you will see that some words are in BOLD letters. Those are the words you need to change to personalize your letter to Santa. If you see an X that should be replaced with a number for your child’s age.

Click on the photos below or these links:

How to Make Your Own Free Letters from Santa

Here are some websites you can use to get Free Letter from Santa sent to your Inbox. They offer simple letters from Santa for free and fancier letters for a free. You will still need your printer to print their letters.

Letterfromsanta.org offers a free printable letter that is personalized with your child’s name. There is one design to choose from and you it is sent to your by email. You then print it out at home using your own printer. They also offer fancier letters with over 150 letter designs, personalized envelopes, and personalized photo of Santa for a small fee.

FreeLettersfromSantaClaus.com offers you the 5 Free unique letters from Santa Claus. Pick the letter you would like, add your child’s name, age, desired present, accomplishments this year, friend’s name and hometown. Your letter will be ready to print. For an additional cost you can get realistic North Pole stamp with your child’s name.

How to Make Peppermint “Candy Cane” Whoopie Pies

The kids loved making these Peppermint “Candy Cane” Whoopie Pies. They are the perfect holiday treat. Make them for your Christmas party or have the kids make them for Santa. Whoopie Pies are great with milk.

The first thing you need to do is make the Whoopie Pie. Then you make the filling.

Whoopie Pie Cake Recipe

This recipe makes 16 Peppermint Candy Cane Whoopie Pies

Supplies Needed:

Whoopie Pie Ingredients:

3 cups sugar
1 cup butter
4 eggs
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
6 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups unsweetened cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking powder
1-1/2 tablespoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
3 cups milk
Filling (see below)
Candy Canes, crushed

Whoopie Pie Instructions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

2. In a large bowl, beat the sugar, butter, and eggs together until well combined. Add the oil and vanilla and beat again.

3. In a separate bowl, combine all of the dry ingredients. Add half of the dry mixture to the egg mixture and beat or stir until blended. Add 1-1/2 cups milk and beat again. Add the remaining dry mixture and beat until all is mixed well. Add the remaining 1-1/2 cups milk and beat until blended.

4. Drop batter onto a baking sheet using a large tablespoon. You will be baking 32 whoopie pie halves.

5. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes. Remove the baking from the oven and let cool completely.

Whoopie Pie Filling Ingredients:

1-1/2 cups shortening
3 cups confectioners’ sugar
1-1/3 cups marshmallow topping
Dash salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/3 to 1/2 cup milk

Whoopie Pie Filling Instructions:

1. In the medium-size bowl, combine all ingredients except the milk and beat on high with an electric mixer.

2. Add just enough milk and beat until you achieve a creamy consistency.

3. Spread filling onto 16 halves and place remaining halves on top, to make 16 Whoopie Pies.

How to Crush Candy Canes:

Break candy canes into pieces. Place candy canes in a zip-top bag. Use a rolling pin and roll to crush or use the pin like a hammer and pound to crush the candy canes. Crush them until you have small pieces but not until you have candy cane dust.

How to Rim Whoopie Pies with Crushed Candy Canes

1. Place crushed candy canes on a large, flat plate.

2. Take a finished Whoopie Pie press it together slightly to make the filling ooze out of the edges slightly. Do not press too hard of the Whoopie Pie will break.

3. Tap an edge of the Whoopie Pie onto the plate. Turn the pie slightly and tap again. Continue this process until the entire edge of the Whoopie Pie has been rimmed with crushed candy canes.

Create a Free Family-Friendly Halloween Party Playlist

You are cordially invited to the most Monsterific Halloween Party around! There will be werewolves, zombies, ghosts, vampires, skeletons, mummies, Munsters, Frankenstein’s monster, monsters from outer space and even monsters of the terrestrial variety!

8track.com is where you will find classic Halloween songs to build your Family-Friendly Halloween Playlist. Playlists might include “Monster Mash” or the “Vampire’s Ball”. When carving pumpkins or getting prepped for trick-or-treating, any one of these playlists could provide the perfect background soundtrack.

Some of our Halloween Soundtrack Favorites:

Spooky Scary Skeletons by Andrew Gold

I Put a Spell on You by Screaming Jay Hawkins

The Monster Mash by Bobby “Boris” Pickett & The Crypt Kickers

Friends on the Other Side by Keith David from Disney The Princess and the Frog

Vampire’s Ball by Mann Drake by Ghouls With Attitude – Disc 2

House Of Horrors Halloween Oldies But Goodies Of The ’50s & ’60s

The Addams Family Theme Song

Dead Silence On Piano by Rhaeide

Visit 8tracks.com and build your Halloween Playlist. Listen to millions of playlists for Free, all created by people like you who know and love music. Pick a top Halloween playlist or use our suggestions as a guide to get you started. Like, save and share your playlist. Play your Halloween playlist through your phone or tablet for Free.

Looking for Halloween Craft Ideas?

Click to view all of these Halloween projects now!

Do you have favorite Halloween tunes?

Label Everything with the DYMO LabelManager 160

The kids went back to school and you are left wondering if anything you sent with them will ever make it back home again. You gave them a shiny new backpack and a cool set of lunch containers but will they ever see the light of day in your house once more?

Kids forget stuff! Adults forget stuff! Label it! The DYMO LabelManager 160 is a compact, handheld labeler that makes labeling everything you own simple. If you take the extra step to add labels to everything you send to school with your kids, it may just make it back to be used for another day.

The DYMO LabelManager 160 is easy to type on because it features a computer-style QWERTY keyboard and has one-touch Smart Keys. There are 6 font sizes and 8 text styles (bold, italics, underline and a combination of each) available for use in the DYMO LabelManager. You can also customize your labels with a built-in library of 228 symbols and clip-art images.

The DYMO LabelManager 160 is lightweight and is about 8″ long. It fits comfortably in both hands. I found that it works better with two hands than just one . It is powered by 6 AAA batteries (not included) and will turn itself off after a few seconds of non-use to preserve battery power. You can also power it with an 9V A/C adapter (not included).

The light blue Power and Print buttons are large and easy to find. In between these buttons you will find some useful formatting buttons for 1) font enlargement 2) bold 3) italics 4) underline and 5) vertical printing.

The soft keys on the keyboard have bright white letters which make them easy to find, especially if you are a “hunt and peck” kind of typer. It works better with two hands and is easy to type with your thumbs like you would a smartphone.

The DYMO LabelManager 160 uses DYMO D1 labels that are available in 1/4″, 3/8″ and 1/2″ widths. The cartridges are easy to change out. Just lift the “back door”, lift the old one out and pop in a new one. You can even buy NEON green and pink label tape.

Now onto the printing – we found that the labels came out clear and crisp and adhered to surfaces with no problem. A really cool feature you may overlook is that the DYMO LabelManager has a “last label memory” feature so you can reprint without retyping. You will definitely want to keep one of these around the house to label not only your kid’s school items but to label all kinds of things. I even label light-switch panels in the kitchen because I can never remember which one is for the outside light and which one is for the yard light.

The font point size will show on the LED screen. It is a little small so I pointed it out for you below.

The label cutter is on the right side. Just press it to cut the label once it is done printing.

You will have to do a few test labels to see what the font looks like. I made the first one 16 point and it was too small. I made the second one 24 point and it was too large. I settled on 20 point. This was for my YARD and PATIO labels I put on the light-switch cover. The larger font would have worked somewhere else.

The DYMO LabelManager 160 Hand-Held Label Maker is affordable at less than $20 and is a good tool to keep in the kitchen drawer for all of your labeling projects.

Going Back to School with Crocodile Creek Backpacks

Our kids just started school this week after a long, hot summer. We’re all glad to have something new to look forward to and the kids love school. Both of the girls got new backpacks from Crocodile Creek. We were trying to find cute “girly” backpacks. We looked high and low and found these cute pink and purple backpacks made by Crocodile Creek.

We had never heard of Crocodile Creek until we bought these backpacks. We didn’t even see them in stores, only on the Crocodile Creek website and took a chance. We are super impressed with the quality.

The backpacks are beautiful, high-quality, and sturdy and are just the right size for younger children. They feature bold colors and designs. Each backpack measures 11-1/2″ wide x 14″ high.

Come to find out, Crocodile Creek also sells lunch boxes, drinking bottles, sandwich keepers, snack keeper sets, ice pack sets, placemats, food jars, watches, puzzles, and balls. Crocodile Creek products conforms to all of the appropriate safety standards.

Crococdile Creek: store.crocodilecreek.com/c/backpacks

Check this out! Ava and Paisley’s younger sister, Layla, who is 2, wanted to put a backpack on and go to school with her sisters. It’s just too cute for words.