Clean Eating Christmas Treats to Make With Your Kids

Christmas is always a really fun time of year with my kids. We get to make fun recipes together, get creative with crafts, decorate the house and the tree, and learn lots of new songs. The special things that you do together as a family that are out of the ordinary, are what I believe truly make the memories that they hold onto for a lifetime.

When they are young, there is not a moment to waste. So I try to fill their time with skills they can carry on with them for the rest of their lives, like working in the kitchen, and fun filled times with mom and dad doing things most other kids don't get the chance to do. Last night, we stayed out way too late and hiked the Seven Falls with our kids to see all of the Christmas lights and the frozen waterfalls. It was definitely an experience of a lifetime for all of us.

Today, we are making paper plate reindeer and snowmen, and making Christmas cookies. You gotta keep them on their toes right? Hopefully with these ideas you'll get some fun ideas to do with your kids, and maybe even some inspiration to get out and do something fun yourself. Merry Christmas!

This cute craft, modified from Eats Amazing, is one of the most fun crafts, but also one of the easiest for my little ones. They just love using cookie cutters, and the fact that they also love rolling out and cooking the homemade tortillas makes this craft even better. This is essentially how to make your own tortilla chips, sans the cookie cutters, of course.

Ingredients

• whole wheat tortillas, homemade preferred
• coconut oil
• pink Himalayan salt
• Snowflake cookie cutters

Instructions

1. Start by preheating your oven to 350 degrees F and line a couple of cookie sheets with parchment paper.
2. Take your large snowflake cookie cutters and cut as many snowflake shapes as you can from your tortillas.
3. Use smaller snowflake cookie cutters in various shapes to cut patterns onto the insides of your snowflakes - you could do this freehand with the tip of a small sharp knife but the mini cutters make it a lot quicker!
4. Carefully place the tortilla snowflakes onto your prepared cookie sheets. Brush them with a little coconut oil and sprinkle over a little bit of salt (optional). You could also them with sprinkle sesame seeds for extra flavor and texture if you like them.
5. Bake in the oven for 5-10 minutes until the snowflakes are starting to brown round the edges and are crispy. Do keep a sharp eye on them a they cook as they can burn very easily.
6. Once baked and crispy, remove from the oven and leave to cool for 10 minutes on a wire rack. Serve with hummus, guacamole, or another dip of your choice.

These precious little Christmas trees are so delicious. These are ingredients that we would normally dip our pita bread into normally, but making sweet little trees out of them just make eating pita bread, bell pepper and guacamole that much more exciting! My sweet little guy loves to make all of his snacks this much fun now.

Ingredients

• 4 pita breads, homemade pita recipe
• handful of pretzel sticks, halved
• 1/2 cup sour cream
• 1/2 cup guacamole, homemade preferred
• 2 tablespoons parsley
• 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/4 cup red bell pepper, chopped

Instructions

1. Cut each pita fold into 8 wedges.
2. Insert a pretzel stick half into the center of the bottom of each pita wedge to form "tree trunk."
3. In a small bowl, mix your sour cream, guacamole, parsley and garlic powder.
4. Spread about 1 teaspoon of your sour cream mixture onto each pita wedge.
5. Finally, chop your bell pepper and sprinkle about 1/4 teaspoon of it on each pita wedge or arrange it to form a garland.

We don't generally eat candy canes in this house, but it's hard for my children not to be familiar with them as we visit stores and friends that offer them to him all the time. However, we do eat tons of bananas and strawberries in our house. I love that my oldest can still get the candy canes he craves in a form that he already knows he loves. Wonderful idea from Nourishing Minimalism!

Ingredients

• Bananas
• Strawberries

Instructions

1. Slice your fruit into rounds.
2. Place them alternately on plate in the shape of a candy cane.
3. Serve immediately, as if you had a choice.

I'm loving that Christmas lends us so many creative ways to eat every day snacks. This idea from In The Playroom was especially cute because it encouraged my son to think outside of the box to create more green and red sandwiches, and of course, it gave him another opportunity to use his cookie cutters. (Side note: The cut-outs that my son had left after making his star sandwiches made perfectly sized sandwiches for my smallest one.)

Ingredients

• Whole wheat bread slices
• Cream cheese or even cottage cheese
• Chives, finely chopped
• Red bell pepper, finely chopped
• Cucumber, cut into ribbons

Instructions

1. For each sandwich lightly toast two slices of bread.
2. Spread your cheese on one slice and sprinkle with finely chopped chives or pepper.
3. Cut a large star out of the second piece of toast and then a small star out of the center.
4. Place this prepared star on top of the first slice of prepared toast and re-cut with the large star cutter to make a star sandwich.
5. The method for the cucumber one is exactly the same except.
6. Spread one slice of toast with your cheese and then overlap with cucumber ribbons.
7. Proceed as above to cut out your star sandwiches.

We make these pancakes a lot in our house. I love this cute idea for getting fun Christmas shapes with your pancakes, and my son loves to fill the cookie cutters himself in the pan. I certainly do not have the skills to make shapes with my pancakes without the help of the cookie cutters quite yet. If this method just isn't working for you though, you can make regular pancakes and then cut the shapes out with your cookie cutters afterward as well.

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
• 1 tablespoon coconut sugar
• 3 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon pink Himalayan salt
• 1 large egg
• 3 tablespoons real butter
• 1 1/4 cups organic whole milk
• more butter for your pan
• metal cookie cutters

Instructions

1. Mix all of your pancake ingredients together in a bowl.
2. Heat up your pan and melt a little butter in the bottom.
3. Set your chosen cookie cutters into the pan and fill them carefully with pancake batter.
4. Cook your pancakes over medium heat until they bubble on top, and then flip your cookie cutters over carefully, with a spatula, to cook on the other side.
5. They will only need a couple minutes to brown.
6. Then remove them from your pan to a plate and let them cool a little before pressing your pancakes out of their cookie cutters.
7. (If your pancakes are sticking, you may want to grease the inside of your cookie cutters with coconut oil first.)

I always suggest making your own food items, like these bagels, whenever possible. Then you can avoid all of the chemicals, preservatives, and refined ingredients, and truly eat something good for your body. And even though this craft is a lot of fun for the smaller ones in the family, you can also know that they are enjoying a treat you don't have to worry about.

Ingredients

• 1 package mini bagels, or make your own
• Cream cheese
• Various veggies, finely chopped (tomatoes, red onion, bell peppers, cucumber...)
• Toothpicks

Instructions

1. Cut your bagels in half.
2. Smear them with a bit of cream cheese.
3. Dice up your veggies and have fun decorating.
4. Use big chunks of your chosen veggie, and a toothpick, for the top of these delectable ornaments.
5. Enjoy! Yum!

This precious craft is pretty self-explanatory, but isn't it adorable?! We eat lots of watermelon and yogurt here. But we normally freeze our watermelon to prolong it, and then either eat it frozen or make it into slushies or popsicles. But boy wouldn't this be something fun to do for a fun playdate, or when family was over to visit for the holidays?!

Ingredients

• Watermelon
• Organic yogurt, (we use Brown Cow)

Instructions

1. Cut your watermelon into long thin slices like you likely would normally.
2. Then cut those slices into thirds.
3. Trim the rind to look like a tree trunk and then use toothpicks stick into your yogurt to decorate your trees.
4. Briefly freeze your trees to harden the yogurt.
5. Serve immediately.

Imagine having a snowman waiting on your plate for you for breakfast! What a fun Christmas morning idea. You really can use any ingredients you'd like for this beautiful plate of food. We like to put all of the ingredients out on the table with plates, so everyone can make their own fun winter picture on their plate. It's fun to see what everyone comes up with.

Suggested Ingredients

• Pancakes
• Sliced fruit
• Melted chocolate
• Honey
• Parmesan cheese (for snow)

Instructions

1. Let everyone be creative.
2. You might have to get it started by being the first guinea pig if you haven't done this in your house before.

Healthy Little Foodies has a fantastic recipe for this precious craft! When I first saw this idea a few years ago, I loved the idea, and since then we have definitely made it our own. We actually enjoy this frozen treat all year long, modifying it with the fruit that is in season and the holidays or celebrations that come up. Have fun with this and don't be afraid to get creative!

Ingredients

• 2 cups Natural Greek Yogurt
• 3 Kiwi
• 5 Strawberries (chopped into small pieces)
• 1 tbsp Dried Cranberries

Instructions

1. Thinly slice the kiwis and then cut a tree from each slice.
2. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.
3. Pour the yogurt into the center of the tray and spread it out evenly.
4. Place the kiwi trees, strawberries and cranberries as desired onto the yogurt.
5. Freeze until completely solid (approximately 4 hours or so).
6. Cut into sections and serve.
7. Place sections into a zip lock bag and store in the freezer for later.

Not all crafts have to be complex or follow any specific rules. The idea is to give your children the ideas and then let them run with them. You never know, they might come up with an idea that's way better than the one you found online and thought was so cute! Kids definitely have an unlocked creativity that we don't have.

Ingredients

• Apples
• Peanut butter
• Cute mini Christmas cookie cutters

Instructions

1. Slice your apples into big circles.
2. Use your cookie cutters to cut out the cores.
3. Spread with peanut butter, sandwich your apple slices together, and enjoy!

This recipe comes from Fit Foodie Finds, and is just delicious! We don't get to make this amazing delight very often, but try to work it in with the kids on special occasions, like Christmas, and my birthday! Not only is it delicious, but it's a lot of fun to put together as well. There really isn't too much my 4 year old isn't able to do himself in the kitchen, and he sure loves cooking. This fun craft is one of our favorites!

Ingredients

Wet:

• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract, (my homemade recipe)
• 1/4 cup honey
• 2 tablespoons coconut oil, softened

Dry:

• 2 cups almond flour (ground almonds)
• 1/2 cup coconut flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/16 teaspoon (pinch) pink Himalayan salt

Filling:

• 3 oz cream cheese
• 1/2 cup Greek yogurt
• 1.5 – 2 tablespoons raw honey
• zest from 1/2 lemon

Fruit:

• 1/2 cup blueberries
• 1/2 cup strawberries
• 1/2 cup blackberries
• mint leaves (optional)

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350ºF and line a round cookie sheet with parchment paper. Set aside.
2. Mix wet ingredients in a medium size bowl. Set aside.
3. In a separate bowl, mix dry ingredients.
4. Slowly add dry ingredients to wet ingredients. Dough will be thick, and it’s easier to mix and kneed the dough with your hands until combined (it helps to wet your hands with water to keep dough from sticking to your hands). Form into a ball.
5. Place dough ball onto your prepared cookie sheet and evenly flatten dough to the bottom of the pan.
6. Take a greased spatula and carefully separate cookie dough from the edge of the pan to make removal easier after baking.
7. Bake for 14-17 minutes.
8. While crust is baking, place all ingredients for the filling into a blender or single serve smoothie cup and blend until smooth. It should be thick and creamy.
9. Let crust cool and then remove from pan.
10. Cut a circle from the middle of your cookie to make your wreath shape.
11. Evenly spread your filling over the top of the crust.
12. Decorate fruit pizza with berries and mint, and garnish with lemon zest.
13. Place in fridge and let set for 15-20 minutes.
14. Enjoy!

Popcorn is a fun, anytime-you-want-it kind of treat you can make. It can be made to sit in front of a great movie, take in the car, go to a playdate, or even just sit at the table and work on crafts together. It's so easy to pull together that there's not even much preparation. We like to keep the organic multi-colored corn kernels around to make popcorn because they're more fun!

Ingredients

• 3 Tbsp coconut oil
• 1/3 cup popcorn kernels
• 1/4 cup raisins
• 1/4 cup Pumpkin seeds
• 1/4 cup shelled pistachio nuts

Instructions

1. Heat a heavy-bottom pot with a lid over medium high heat. I use my Dutch oven, but any big pot will do.
2. Add the coconut oil plus just 4 popcorn kernels into the pot.
3. Cover and cook for 4-6 minutes, or until all 4 of the kernels have popped - you’ll be able to hear them pop.
4. Remove the lid once the 4 kernels have popped and take out the popped popcorn. Doing this ensures the temperature is perfect when you add the rest of the kernels.
5. Add the remaining kernels.
6. Cover the pot and cook, shaking frequently, for 2-5 minutes or until the popping dies down quite a bit.
7. Once you can only hear just a pop or so every second, remove the pot from heat and take off the lid. This will allow the popcorn to dry out a little from releasing the moisture.
8. Take your freshly popped popcorn and toss with your berries, nuts, and seeds.
9. Store in an airtight container.

Last year we were moving during Christmastime, with a newborn, and we missed out on a great deal of Christmas fun together. So this year, we are going big with all the fun we can possibly cram into one season. And something else fun, we have a newbie to all of this fun stuff to join us this year. My youngest is now one and can jump into the fun, and he isn't wasting an opportunity.

I think it's safe to say that you'll be seeing him in a lot of pictures as well from here on out, both creating with us, and enjoying the hard work afterwards. He did really well making all of these treats. I think we have another chef in the making!