Christmas Archives - Kids 'R' Simple

Experience A Universal Christmas at Universal Studios Singapore

This year, A Universal Christmas includes many Christmas highlights, interactive workshops and interesting shows to delight everyone young at heart. You may be wondering if these are all included in the entry ticket. The answer is Yes! The park hours are extended till 9pm daily too! So, it is super worth it to visit Universal Studios Singapore from 1 Dec to 1 Jan because you get to enjoy more than the usual popular and awesome rides and attractions. Best of all, you can soak in the beautiful and everything magic Christmas mood and sights!

3 years back we had an enjoyable time at Universal Studios Singapore for their Christmas Special. We remembered every ride we took and even remembered fondly of eating dinner at Din Tai Fung after that. Fast forward 3 years later, every one of us looked forward to have an equally fun time during this period of the year again! So happy that this time, our youngest was able to join us in most of the rides and not only that, the kids got to take their favourite rides with their cousins again.

A Universal Christmas runs daily and features daytime and nighttime experiences! Here are some of our favourites!

Santa’s Workshop
Timing: 12 – 8pm
Where: New York Zone

Santa’s Workshop makes anything associated with Christmas. The Santa is recruiting elves for this holiday season. Each child or adult who goes into the workshop will go through 5 tasks in different thematic zones and collect stamps on a personalised certificate bearing their own photo. The interactive zones start with a fun photo-taking station that transforms you to an elf. After that, a door opens up to the rest of the stations like sorting letters in a mailroom, assembling a robot in Toy Factory, helping Mrs Claus to find ingredients to make cookies and finally meeting Santa Claus for a photo opportunity!

We were expecting more detailed interactive activities but they were really simple tasks where the whole group were ushered from room to room for different experiences. Nevertheless, the entire 20 minute or so session brings smiles to everyone even the Grandpa (my Father-in-law) who seemed to enjoy the workshop too!

Oscar’s Grouchmas
Timing: 1215pm, 230pm, 430pm, 630pm* (varies with different days)
Where: Pantages Hollywood Theater

The show’s title made us laugh. It is not hard to imagine how grouchy Oscar will be. We did not manage to catch this show at all the 4 timings as the park is so big and we needed double the time to move the 6 kids around from one attraction to another. We were simply too far away to be back in time to watch the show. Otherwise, we would love to see how Oscar transforms from a Christmas grouch to the holiday’s number one fan through an unexpected journey — discovering the true meaning of the season and the joys of giving, kindness and love. The kids missed the chance to see Elmo and the Cookie Monster too.

Search For A Christmas Star (at World of Stars)
Timing: 730pm, 845pm
Where: New York Zone

This is one of the highlights of A Universal Christmas and we made it well in time to secure a good view of the stage. Then we realised that the Airy Fairy was flying in from behind as she swished her magic wand to light up the streets of New York as she set the stage for “Search for a Christmas star”. It was a beautiful and sparkling sight. Remember to get ready your camera to take many insta-worthy pictures.

Search for a Christmas Star is a Star Search Contest where each contestant competes with his best talent. The show wows the audience with toy soldiers in break dancing, ‘Snow’ and ‘Flake’ in lovely singing, other contestants performing familiar Christmas melodies, aerial acrobatics, special effects, fireworks, snowfall, projection mapping of the New York Public Library and many more. We enjoyed the dance moves and singing in this musical that captured our attention from start till end. Not to mention that there is a meaningful moral behind the story of this contest.

There was a surprise appearance of a Gingerbread Boy and Gingerbread Girl in the finale! They must have come out of Mrs Claus Kitchen! Snow started to fall at this moment to everyone’s excitement. We were delighted to queue up just to take a picture with these 2 cuties and the talented cast.

Santa’s Snowy Sleigh Ride and Santa’s Christmas Tree House
Timing: 12pm, 2pm, 4pm, 6pm, 8pm
Where: New York Zone and Hollywood Zone

We were looking forward to seeing Santa parade down the streets on his sleigh. As we missed all the earlier timings, we wanted to catch Santa after the 730pm World of Stars show for the last parade at 8pm. Unfortunately, we missed the parade by a few minutes and could only manage to take a photo instead. If you wish to catch the Santa sleigh ride, please try to go for the earlier timings.

Hello Kitty Store @ Universal Studios Singapore

We could not have come at a better time! The Hello Kitty Store has just opened just a week ago! I am sure Hello Kitty Fans will not hesitate to visit the park for the sake of this all-pretty store!

Oh, before I forget, guests can shop this year’s hottest gifts at any of the park’s retail stores and with every S$100 nett spent (One free postage applicable to a Singapore address only, with every S$100 nett spent), they can have their gifts mailed straight to their loved ones – for free – with the North Pole Postage Service located along Hollywood. This makes it so convenient for Christmas Shopping 🙂

We stayed till 9pm and not before we took the last attraction on our to-visit list which was the Canopy Flyer in the dark! It was certainly a different experience dangling your feet in the night air and taking in the night scene. We were also lucky for that day’s weather was cool and cloudy. There was some slight drizzle but that did not dampen any of our spirits. In fact, the kids wore their ponchos in the drizzle and were happy to get wet in the Water World Show Soak Zone and the Jurassic Park Rapids Ride. So, remember to bring along Ponchos to USS!

We had lots of fun at Universal Studios Singapore just like we did each time we visited the park. It gets better each time when each of the kids grows up and meets the minimum height for the attractions. I think it will become a tradition for us to visit USS during Christmas time simply because we have so many beautiful memories at USS Christmas special that accompanied the kids’ growing up years. The best part is that we will never outgrow USS because the rides are so exciting and they get better as the kids grow up! We will be back again soon!

Disclaimer: We received complimentary tickets from Universal Studios Singapore. We had great fun and hope you will too! For more information, visit www.universalchristmas.sg .

Charity Work For Families – Boys’ Brigade Share-A-Gift Project

Every Christmas is a period of giving and sharing. It has been my wish to do volunteering work for the longest time. There are plenty of volunteering work out there to choose to do. But taking time on weekends on my own will deprive my family time with the kids. Till the day my kids are older when I will have more free time to do my own stuff, I will need to find one charity work that includes the family and suitable for the kids for now.

Some volunteer work need long term commitment which I cannot commit. Some needs older kids to do. Some, like orphanage, are sensitive to visit as a family (we learnt that through inquiries). It was not easy to find one that 2 adults, 2 kids and 1 toddler can volunteer together. And that is when I learnt about the Boys’ Brigade Share-A-Gift project.

Share-A-Gift is an easy thing to do and it can involve the whole family including my 4yo toddler. In short, it is on food hamper delivery to needy families.

First we had to sign up at http://www.bbshare.sg/ for a time slot that works for us. On that day, we appeared at BB’s Headquarters, and had the BB Boys load 10 big food hampers into our car. We also received 5 acknowledgement slips with 5 addresses to deliver the food hampers to. The 5 addresses are within blocks away from each other or within the same block. Then we were on our way as delivery boys and girls!

Initially we thought it was as simple as going up to the beneficiary units, and passed the hampers to them with a friendly smile of Hello, Merry Christmas and Bye. And if we were lucky, chat with the families as well. But it turned out to be a little tougher than just that.

With happy smiles and enthusiasm, each of us carried a heavy hamper and went up to the first unit. But there was no one at home after knocking on the door. So, we moved on to the second unit, hoping we had better luck, then, it was again no answer. We moved on to the third unit, refusing to believe that we would hit an empty unit for the third time. Again no answer! Even the toddler started to call out “Hello! Hello!” and knocking on the door loudly. By this time, the kids were getting disappointed and were tired of lugging the heavy hampers around. Can you believe our bad luck? None of the 5 beneficiaries was at home!

While we thought this was it, I decided to call the recipients and finally one uncle, who was at the coffeeshop downstairs, came home after picking up my call. This was our first successful delivery after an hour or so!

As we were doing this project with 4 family friends, one of them did not have any luck too. And they went back to the BB Headquarters to report and were given new beneficiary addresses. This saved us a trip back and we drove to the next address to deliver the remaining 4 sets of food hampers. This time, we were smarter. We called up the recipients before we delivered the hampers to them. In this round, we managed to deliver another 3 sets of food hampers! The kids were delighted and one of our family friends helped to send back all our remaining hampers back to BB Headquarters together with the acknowledgement slips.

All in all, we spent 2 hours of a Sunday afternoon, breaking our Sunday family routine, to do a simple but meaningful work for those in need! Seeing their smiles upon receiving the hampers gave us a feeling of contentment and happiness. I hope this small start of volunteering will enable the kids to appreciate simple things in life and learn to share and give 🙂

After that, the 4 families went for a playdate together at Marine Cove playground and had great fun at the East Coast Beach.

Perhaps, if you wish to do volunteering work with your kids or friends, you should really check this out. It is certainly a good start to teach the kids to share and give. It need not be all monetary gifts, it can be a gift of time and I find this even more meaningful!

Do check out http://www.bbshare.sg/ and register a slot from now till 31 December (Except for 24, 25 and 26 Dec).

More information:

For 29 years, since 1988, The Boys’ Brigade has been seeking to bring cheer to the less fortunate by collecting food items and fulfilling Christmas wishes of the beneficiaries through The Boys’ Brigade Share-a-Gift (BBSG) project.

Beneficiaries include elderly, kids and needy families.Each food hamper consists of 25 items, put together by the BBSG, from donations gathered from the public.

Each hamper is estimated to last the beneficiaries for four months or more. Common items are Rice, Biscuits, Cooking Oil, Instant Noodles, Canned food, seasonings, etc.

There are 3 things you can choose to do for this Share-A-Gift Project:

1) Donations of food items:From 25 November till 19 December 2016, gifts donated will be collected through the Gift Boxes (for General Wishes) and Wish Trees (for Specific Wishes) at various FairPrice outlets island-wide from 11am to 9pm daily. The public would be able to deposit their general food and household items in the Gift Boxes, and fulfill specific wishes of the beneficiaries that are placed on tags on the Wish Trees.

Donors can also contribute by purchasing general food and household hampers valued at $20, $30, and $50 via NTUC FairPrice’s online portal (www.fairprice.com.sg) or donate cash at any AXS station.

2) Adopt a Wish (Specific Wishes Project)Adopt a wish or wishes from any of the Boys’ Brigade Share-A-Gift Wish Trees in Singapore.Pick up a wish tag and get the item on the wish tag. Place the gift at the location where you pick up the wish tag. The Wish Trees are located at various NTUC outlets. More information can be found on the “donation location” here.

3) Deliver Food Hampers like what we do!

Let this season be the start of a regular volunteering work with your kids and families 🙂

Disclaimer: This is NOT a sponsored post. We got to be part of this meaningful project when I learnt through media and PR who are promoting volunteering and sharing during this holiday period. It could not have come at a better time when I was coincidentally looking up for doing volunteering work with my kids 🙂

Spurbox Advent Calendar Activity Box {+Giveaway}

What is the Spurbox Advent Calendar about?

It is a craft box with 12 different activities to complete within 24 days before Christmas. And you know kids are kids. The moment my kids laid hands on the Spurbox, they did 2 activities in one go in an hour! So, you may time the craft sessions with your kids according to your own schedule.

You may have read about our home-made Advent Calendar in the previous post. In a few of the advent activities, I included the kids’ favourite activity, i.e. Art and Craft. I love doing art and craft with them. When the elder kids were having exams, we shelved off all craft activities and life was kind of boring with revision, revision and revision. And now, with the school holidays, is the best time to do craft work together. Especially when the 2 elder kids are still interested enough to not label it as ‘boring’ and the youngest is old enough to do many crafts with minimal supervision.

We received the Spurbox Advent Calendar which comes in time for making our crafts as part of the Advent Calendar activities. Save me the effort to think of craft ideas!

What is the Spurbox Advent Calendar about?

I realize that each pack of activity contains the craft supplies needed but not in entirety. Some common things like scissors, markers, glue are not included but most families with kids should have them ready in the house. I would actually prefer that Spurbox includes ALL the supplies needed just like some other subscription boxes have. However, this is a small thing, we have plenty of common craft supplies and we can live with that.

There is a piece of puzzle that comes with each activity pack. Upon completion of the 12 activities, we are supposed to piece the 12 pieces of puzzles on an A4 sheet with 12 boxes to reveal the picture. We are certainly looking forward to what picture it will be!

snowman-in-a-cup — Activity – Snowman In A Cup

Perhaps you may like to get one Spurbox Advent Calendar for your child or as a gift.

Each Spurbox is priced at SGD36.90 and if you order 2 or more, the price will be SGD28.

Do check out other activity boxes and more information over here.

Craft and Baking Classes

Apart from Spurbox Advent Calendar Activities, Spurbox holds craft and baking classes too! The holiday classes are held from 3 Dec to 23 Dec and they have regular weekend classes. We tried out 1 craft class and 1 baking class over 2 different days.

Magic Pocky Wand Baking Class

Suitable for 2 and above (young children to be accompanied by parent(s))

Duration: 1.5 hours

We had really lots of fun baking together and the best part is the recipe is sooooo simple and yet tastes sooooo good that I am going to do it at home during our Christmas Party!

20161126_155321 — Making a small craft while waiting for Pocky Wands to be baked

Recipe

100g Condense Milk

4 TBSP Water

256g of Plain Flour

40g Butter

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 150C
Mix condensed milk with water and set aside
Then mix in the flour until it’s well mixed
Add the butter and keep mixing till mixtures resembles cornmeal
Mould into a stick and bake for 15 minutes, then spread melted white chocolate and sprinkle on top! Note that the white chocolate can harden pretty quick and do add the sprinkles as soon as possible

You can get the sprinkles from Phoon Huat, so I was told, and I am going to buy them to sprinkle on cookies and even ice-cream!

Santa Mug Pottery

Suitable for 2 and above (young children to be accompanied by parent(s))

Duration: 3 hours

This was the first time we did pottery and it was not difficult for Master 4, but not without my supervision. Each of us was given an apron and a piece of clay. The friendly staff guided us step by step with rather simple instructions. Nothing too difficult to handle for kids.

20161127_135348 — Helping Master 4 to cut the pottery

More information on Spurbox Holiday Camps and Term Classes:

Spurbox Junior Gourmet classes cater to children age 2 and above. They are currently having chocolate logcakes and gingerbread house classes for the Christmas season. They have also rolled out CNY classes such as custard cookies and tangerine cakes. Each Junior Gourmet class is 90mins and children can also enjoy an interactive and engaging storytelling session, as well as a craft session. All materials are provided and accompanying parent(s) do not need to purchase a ticket. Ticket is usually priced at SGD40 per kid and SGD70 for 2 kids. More information on Spurbox Holiday Camps and term classes, do check out here.

If you really like their classes, they do have a Super Saver Pass promotion where children can attend any 5 classes at only $150, working out to be $30 per class, which I think is fairly reasonable if one or two parents are able to do it with the child FOC.

Giveaway Time!

Spurbox is very generous to sponsor 4 Spurbox Advent Calendar Activity Box to 4 lucky winners! I thought this is really kind of them!

Steps to participate:

1) Leave a comment on the facebook post telling me what bonding activities do you do with your kids during the day time (if you are a SAHM) or after working hours (if you are a PTWM or FTWM).

2) Tag 5 friends along with your comment.

3) Sign up to follow my blog via email, please refer to sidebar of blog page. Do remember to tell me in the facebook comments that you have done this step so that I can look out for it.

This is a Flash Giveaway so that winners are in time to craft with their children before Christmas!

Giveaway ends on 12 December 2359 and will be announced on facebook and this post on 13 December.

UPDATE!!

Winners of the giveaway are: Grace Ng, Debra Li, Theresa Tay and Carol Lim! Congrats! I have your email addresses through subscriber list and the organizer shall contact you soon! Happy Crafting!

Further, the organizer is happy to give a 15% discount for individual CNY Craft and Baking classes! Just quote “CHRISTY“!

Happy Crafting and Happy Holidays! Ho! Ho! Ho! 🙂

Disclaimer: We were sponsored the Spurbox Advent Calendar Activity Boxes, Santa Mug Pottery and Pocky Wand Classes for the purpose of this review. All opinions are 100% mine. For working mums like me, the Activity Box is a great help for crafting with the kids without cracking my brains on craft ideas and craft supplies. So, I do hope you will find it fun too!

Our Hand-made Advent Calendar with Activities!

I would need to plan according to the dates from 1 Dec to 24 Dec. Advent Calendar begins on 1 Dec for 24 days if you do not already know. An Advent Calendar is a special calendar used to count or celebrate the days in anticipation of Christmas. You may read more about the Advent Calendar over here.

Even though we are not Christians, we love Christmas anyway. Somehow with the cool weather, with Christmas decorations dressing the malls plus the school holiday season put together, the Christmas mood does make me happier than other months. I have seen many pretty Pinterest photos on Christmas ranging from party ideas to activities. One of them is the Advent Calendar. This year, I decided to do a hand-made Advent Calendar with activities.

My first inspiration was really from A Million Little Echoes, a very talented mum blogger who did an Advent Calendar last Christmas, unveiling one activity each for her kids to do. As I am a full-time working mum, I do not have the luxury to bring the kids out every single day to surprise them, and many of the advent activities have to be in the evening when I come home from work. So, I decided to plan evening home activities and impromptu ideas to make each day an interesting one for the kids!

I started by checking my calendar for special events, and drafted a list of activities that I could input into each day of the 24 days. Some ideas are pretty crazy like.. “Accompanying Ye Ye (Grandpa, my father-in-law) to take a bus home to find Ah Ma (Grandma, my MIL)!” This will be a pleasant surprise and I think it is a great idea to let the kids take an out-of-norm impromptu bus ride to accompany my FIL on his journey home. Did I mention I have the best in-laws in the world? Without my FIL’s help each day to come my house to take care of the kids, I cannot work in peace. I know my kids are in good hands. My MIL is a kind grandma whom my kids are blessed to have. So, giving her a surprise by turning up at her childcare workplace will certainly please her greatly! The kids will certainly be thrilled and for me, I have planned it to be a Friday activity so that I can stay up late with the kids since the next day is a weekend 😃

Some other ideas for activities include movie nights, staycation surprise, a walk along Orchard Road to view Christmas Lightings, Reading Wizard of Oz to my kids, Art and Craft nights, Baking, etc, etc. You can think of your own activities to do with your kids too! It need not be bringing them out if you are busy at work on weekdays. The activities that I plan are mostly taking place at night after work hours.

There are plenty of Advent Calendars out there on Pinterest to find your inspiration. What I did was really a simple one and I got all my supplies from Daiso!

A pack of transparent gift bags
A roll of brown string
A pack of colour paper stickers
A pack of wooden clips
A pack of adhesive fancy ribbons
Small gift cards – I found cute Christmas templates and print them out

I roped in all the kids to help on this very first activity on the Advent Calendar on 1 Dec: To make an Advent Calendar! LOL!

It was easy to task the kids now that the elder 2 are good with their hands and have lots of creative juices. First, they helped me to paste the ribbons on the wooden clips to make the clips look Christmasy and lovely. Even the youngest can do this!

Then I cut a few templates of stickers meant for writing the dates on them and Missy 11 could follow my templates to duplicate to 24 of them.

Next comes the interesting part of writing the dates on the stickers. For Pinterest worthy, my initial thought was to write the dates big and legible with a nice lettering. But I decided to get the kids to write for me and they came out with their favorite drawings, with one creative snowman representing the number 8, a reindeer with a red nose using the red colour paper sticker, a tiger, butterfly and lots more! As a result, even though these bags with the cute drawings are not as glam and Pinterest showcase worthy, I really much prefer these designs as they truly make the otherwise boring advent calendar so much fun and unique!

After the bags were prepared, I spent an hour writing the activities for each day on 3 pieces of Christmas cards and slot them into each bag. One card for each of the 3 kiddos. As the youngest needs help in reading, I drew a picture on some of the cards so that he understands.

The last part of it is to string each bag and hang on the wall!

Each morning, the kids will look forward to opening up that day’s bag and read the messages inside. One thing to note is not to write the date on the message cards so that I can change my activity plans around as and when necessary.

Do you have an Advent Calendar in your home? Perhaps you can try this activity with your kids and have fun everyday till Christmas!

What Christmas means to me…

December is my favourite month in the whole year. First of all, it is one of the coolest month in the year and the wintry snowy image always comes to mind. Secondly, it is the last month of the year, and it means that a new year and new beginning is approaching. Thirdly, I receive my bonus in this month and usually I indulge myself and my family a little more by spending that little more. Lastly, December has Dongzhi Festival or Winter Solstice Festival (冬至) and Christmas Day, which are 2 great occasions for my family to get together.

We are not a Christian nor Catholic family, but we love to celebrate Christmas in our own happy ways. I always respect how Christmas is celebrated in churches, and how my Christian and Catholic friends celebrated in their traditional ways.

It probably started with the childhood TVC jingle “Metro Christmas Magic…” which I can still hum out the song at a snap of the fingers. And it also gets associated with my childhood memories of a rare Christmas period visit to a Metro store full of white Teddies. My parents hardly bought us any presents as we were from humble background. But on that particular day during Christmas to the Metro store, they bought us a set of UNO cards to play.

Childhood memories last forever, especially if they are beautiful ones. My parents gave me a memorable childhood in simple ways. I was brought up in a strong foundation of love and this guided me on how I would want to give my own children their memorable childhood and a contented one.

Our first Christmas tree was set up in our house when Missy was only 1 yo. From then on, this Christmas tree has stayed with us year after year till today. It still looks as good.

Christmas tree at home

This was bought for the kids and they decorated by putting in pompoms, stars and glitter.

For the kids, setting up the Christmas tree has become a tradition and something to look forward to as a family bonding activity. Continue reading “What Christmas means to me…”