Spread this sparkly reindeer food with Christmas sprinkles on your lawn so that it’s the first house Santa and Rudolph spot! It’s a quick and easy kid friendly craft project with cute antlers, googly eyes, and red pom pom noses. With a free reindeer food printable included!
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Why You’ll Love This Magic Reindeer Food Recipe
Reindeer food is a favorite Christmas tradition that is a quick, easy and fun activity!
- Great for Christmas: A festive filling and pipe cleaner antlers make this the perfect fun and easy Christmas project to celebrate your favorite holiday.
- Perfect party favor: Prepare a large bowl of reindeer food and set up a decorating station for guests. Everyone can take it home to sprinkle on their lawn for Christmas Eve!
- Child-friendly: Use super glue, instead of hot glue, for the eyes and nose to make this craft safe for kids to by themselves.
- Easy: If you can add ingredients to a bowl and stir, you can make reindeer food!
What Is Reindeer Food?
A classic Christmas tradition, Reindeer food is an easy craft that’s made for Christmas Eve. Children are told through the reindeer food poem to sprinkle it on their lawn to help guide Santa and the reindeer to their home.
The ingredients are a combination of cereal, oats, chocolate chips, sprinkles, etc. Some reindeer food recipes call for glitter and jingle bells for extra sparkle.
Reindeer Food Poem
Sprinkle on the lawn Christmas Eve night. The moon will make it sparkle bright. As Santa's reindeer fly and roam, this will guide them to your home.
What You’ll Need
Use red, green, and gold sprinkles, glitter, and decorations to make this holiday craft extra festive! Scroll to the bottom of the post for exact ingredient amounts.
For the Reindeer Food
- Oats: They must be old-fashioned oats. Quick oats will sink into the grass and disappear.
- Sprinkles: Any sprinkles will do, but festive sparkly or colored sprinkles add a fun touch.
- Glitter: If your children are still young, use edible glitter in case they want to try a bite!
- Cellophane Bags: Use square treat bags or cone-shaped treat bags.
To Decorate
- Pipe Cleaners: Brown pipe cleaners are best to make them look like reindeer antlers.
- Googly Eyes: I prefer large googly eyes (these have self adhesive so no glue is needed).
- Pom Poms: I used sparkly red pom poms to make the perfect Rudolph nose, however brown or black also work.
- Hot Glue: You can use regular school glue or super glue if you have time let it dry.
How to Make Reindeer Food
Gather your ingredients and set them out in an assembly station before beginning this easy reindeer food recipe. Scroll to the recipe card below for detailed instructions.
- Combine: Add all the reindeer food ingredients into a bowl and mix well.
- Pack: Scoop the mixture into plastic bags, leaving a 2″ edge so that you can close the bags.
- Tie: Twist the pipe cleaners along the top of the filled bags to seal them shut.
- Decorate: Add the reindeer rood printable. Glue the googly eyes and pom pom nose to each bag. Set them aside until Christmas Eve!
Decorating Tips and Variations
Getting creative is easy, even with old socks for a re-usable craft.
- Attach The Printable: There are a few ways you can attach the reindeer printable tag. You can use a stapler or a hole punch and then guide the pipe cleaner through the hole.
- Jingle Bells: Add small jingle bells to the filling for a festive jingle. Avoid them if you’ve got pets who could eat them.
- Use Paint: Grab a paintbrush and acrylic paint to add smiles, hair, necklaces, etc on the reindeer. Let the paint set fully before filling the bags of reindeer food.
- Make Elves: Glue small Santa or elf hats to the pipe cleaners to swap the reindeers for Santa’s little helpers.
- Re-purpose Old Socks: Fill your old Christmas socks with reindeer food. The packets won’t be see-through but you can still decorate them as usual. Toss them out once you’re done or save them for next year.
- Push Pops: Fill the push pops with reindeer food according to package instructions and decorate as desired. Then the kids can explode them into the yard!
Reindeer Food Recipe
Ingredients
For the Reindeer Food:
- 1 cup old fashioned oats
- ¼ cup festive sprinkles
- ¼ cup glitter
- 4 plastic cone bags, or square plastic treat bags
- reindeer food printable
To decorate like Rudolph:
- 4 brown pipe cleaners
- 8 googly eyes
- 4 red sparkly pom poms
- hot glue, regular school glue, or super glue
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Instructions
- In a large bowl mix together oats, sprinkles, and glitter.
- Scoop the mixture into plastic bags, leaving a 2″ edge so that you can close the bags.
- Twist the pipe cleaners along the top of the filled bags to seal them shut.
- Attach the googly eyes and pom pom nose to each bag. Add the printable reindeer food printable and set them aside until Christmas Eve!
Video
Notes
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While this idea seems cute, the inclusion of glitter (including edible glitter) is very bad for wildlife! If birds and mammals ingest the glitter it can cause long-term damage to their digestive systems. Please leave out the glitter folks. Maybe some could be glued onto the lid instead?
What a cute Christmas tradition! I’ve never heard of this before, and love it! FUN!
This is such a cute idea for Christmas! I have a feeling that my youngest would love making this. 🙂
These are so incredibly cute!! I can’t wait to make them for my kids!
This is such a great cute treat for the kiddos!
I use to do this with my kids when they were little. They loved it. Such a cute presentation you got going on!
These are so cute! My boys are gonna love helping me make these!
So cute and I absolutely love your video!!
What a cute idea and fun tradition to pass on to your girls!
These are so cute! I’ll have to pass this on to our nieces and nephews!