The Holiday Season is hectic, often resulting in the kids not wanting to sit down and eat, especially breakfast, because of the parties at school with candy and treats that they'd rather enjoy. However, if you make these quick-cooking oatmeals with the POW factor, your kids may enjoy breakfast. They will intake a little more sugar than usual with some of them, so don't let them go hog wild and have 3 servings, even though it is Christmas. Kids shouldn't have to go on a diet in January :) But first --

Special Christmas Treat for Santa's Team:

Christmas Reindeer Chow (not edible)-

Mix some inexpensive rolled oats and red or green glitter and spread outside on the sidewalk or front porch on Christmas Eve. After the kids are in bed, go out and clean most of it up, but leave a little to make it more believable that the reindeer ate in a hurry and flew on to the next stop. Much fun when you see the kid's faces the next morning when they take a look!!

Instant Oatmeal for People In a Variety of Flavors

INGREDIENTS

• 3 cups Quick-Cooking Oats
• Salt to taste
• Sandwich size Ziplock-style plastic baggies

First Steps

Place ½ cup of quick cooking style oats into a blender and blend on "high" until they are powdery. Pout into a small mixing bowl and set aside. Repeat this procedure with an additional ½ cup of the oats each time. You may also use a food processor for this procedure, which allows you to process a full cup of quick cooking oats in one batch.

Next, place the following into each individual serving bag:

• 1/4 cup quick cooking oats (un-powdered, straight from the box)­
• 2 Tbsp. of your powdered oats
• 1/8 tsp salt.

This is your basic instant oatmeal mixture to which you will add additional ingredients of your choice. Some flavor variations are listed below, and you can invent others as you work with this recipe. Use the sugared versions rarely, as a special treat, and the healthier types more often. There are all types of healthy ingredients you can come up with.

Preparation

• Empty a pre-filled ziplock bag into an individual serving bowl.
• Add ¾ cup boiling water.
• Stir and let stand for 2 minutes.
• NOTE: for a thicker oatmeal dish, simply use less water and for a thinner oatmeal, use more than ¾ cup water.

Variations on the Theme of Oatmeal - No Longer Boring.

The Health Nut - To each plastic ziplock bag add 2 Tbsp. any kind of wheat germ. Add some sunflower seeds and/or cashews. Delish!

The Autumn Mix - Add a dozen candy corn pieces to a ziplock bag of instant oatmeal mix. Walnuts would be a delightful and healthy substitute!

M & M's Cereal - [Too sweet for me :) ]Add a dozen M & M's, even the peanut or almond brand, to a ziplock bag of instant oatmeal mix.

Sweetened Oatmeal - To each plastic ziplock bag add 1 Tbsp. sugar or 1 packet or teaspoon of a natural artificial sweetener like Stevia or even honey (the bag's contaents will be a little gooey).

Apple Cinnamon - To each plastic ziplock bag add 1 Tbsp. sugar, 1/4 tsp. cinnamon, and 2 Tbsp. chopped dried apples.

Brown Sugar & Cinnamon (My favorite!) - To each plastic ziplock bag add 1 Tbsp. brown sugar & 1/4 tsp. cinnamon.

Raisins & Brown Sugar - To each plastic ziplock bag add 1 Tbsp. packed dark brown sugar and 1 Tbsp. raisins.

Fruit & Cream Oatmeal - To each plastic ziplock bag add 1 Tbsp. powdered milk and 2 Tbsp. dried fruit

Rootie Tootie Frootie - To each plastic ziplock bag, add 6 or 7 pieces of packaged fruit snacks treats that children love.

Confetti or Mardi Gras Oatmeal - To each plastic ziplock bag, add 1 tsp. decorative sprinkles.

S'Mores Oatmeal - Add some miniature marshmallows and 1 Tbsp. milk chocolate or dark chocolate chips to each plastic ziplock bag. Butter scotch and peanut butter chips are also good.

Oreo Oatmeal - To each ziplock bag, add 1 crushed Oreo cookie and 1 Tbsp. powdered milk.

Exploding Oatmeal! - Add 1 tsp. sugar and 1/2 tsp. Pop Rocks candy to each plastic ziplock bag. This one is fun for celebration days - 4^th of July, New Years', anniversaries, birthdays, snowed in days, etc. Much fun!

The Butterfinger Bowl - Into a plastic ziplock bag, add 2 Tbsp. of Butterfinger BBs tiny candies.

WHAT VARIETIES CAN YOU THINK OF TO ADD TO THE LIST?