Snowland Play Area

First of all, we live in a place that gets maybe ten minutes of snow flurries a year (at most).  I decided to do a snow themed week with my kids.  To start off, last weekend, I repurposed the train table yet again (maybe I won't be getting rid of it after all).  We took off the black felt from the last time and replaced it with a glitter snow blanket, which I lightly hot glued to the table- I purchased this at Target last year after Christmas for 50 cents!!!  It is much less messy than keeping rice or some other type of fake snow in a box.

We have been into places before that had Christmas villages set up for decor only and the kids were so frustrated that they couldn't play with it.  I wanted something that was out and ready for them to play with whenever they wanted.

There are many ideas out there for setting up holiday play areas for your kids.  I got a good set of playthings, since they are hard to find in Japan, from Pinkandgreenmama.  I ordered it before the summer- I wasn't kidding when I said I had to plan far ahead for lots of projects.

We've got the nativity set up.  This was another after Christmas half pricer, it's the Little People by Fisher Price Manger set, I think I got it at www.fisherprice.com.  To go along with this, we read The Story of Christmas.

We've got igloos:

There's a tree with presents:

There's some eskimos (laying on the pond), snowmen, and tiny candy canes to play with:

The penguins look like they are having fun:

The kids put our snowglobes in too.  Don't you just love the Santa driving the car snowglobe?:

For the five minutes it took me to set up, it has provided countless minutes of entertainment for the kids, and dinner making time for me.