reindeer | Roaming Rosie

Reindeer Christmas Cinnamon Rolls

Well, it’s that time of year again . . . when it’s actually NEXT year (January) and I still have yet to post any of my Christmas projects or recipes. Never mind Halloween or Thanksgiving . . .

And when I took a close, sobering look at my blog, I see that I haven’t updated it in over six months.

Six MONTHS, people. And not just that, but I haven’t been updating my Facebook page either, let alone Twitter or Pinterest.

I seem to be a tad behind.

So here I am: feeling the need to make arguments for how busy I am. And of course I’m busy – but aren’t we all? I could make a very long list mentioning my full-time job and my two young kids, and how I moved recently and adopted a new kitten and how my schedule and stress levels were completely thrown off when Hurricane Irma rolled through . . .

But those are all just excuses. We find time for the things that are important to us. And this blog is important to me. Sharing crafts and books and recipes that connect me to my children is important to me.

So here I am. I also realized that this past holiday season I remade a lot of old recipes (already posted here) with my kids and don’t have a lot of new things to post, but there ARE still things to share. And I’m going to make the time for it.

Starting with these Cinnamon Roll Reindeer, because, I mean, aren’t these just the most adorable cinnamon rolls EVER?

Reindeer Christmas Cinnamon Rolls 2

This past holiday season I spent a lot of time striving for recipes and crafts that embraced simplicity.

These yummy treats are a representation of that. In the picture below you can see the 3 things I used to make them: Grands cinnamon rolls, miniature candy canes, and M&Ms.

I made sure to unwrap the candy canes ahead of time, so I wouldn’t have to deal with the plastic wrappers before my coffee kicked in, but other than that task, these were thrown together in no time.

I used the Grands because they have little pockets, so to speak, to slip the candy canes into. They’re made in a roll shape instead of the little cake-like cinnamon rolls that are one solid piece. This way the candy canes just slid right in and were supported with no problem.

After baking the rolls according to the package directions, apply the icing. Before the icing hardens, add two M&Ms for the eyes and a red M&M for a Rudolph-like nose. Put two candy canes on each side of the “head” to represent the antlers.

You’ll need 4 candy canes per roll. So if you have a package of 5 rolls like I did, then you’ll need 20 miniature candy canes.

Reindeer Christmas Cinnamon Rolls 3

I served these with some sausage and fruit. They were a lot of fun and certainly enjoyed by the kids. I plan to make these a regular tradition.

Happy Baking ;)

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How to Make Snowy Floridian Reindeer Footprints from RoamingRosie.com

These fun “Snowy” Floridian Reindeer Footprints were inspired by a conversation with a friend.

He was telling me about how they used to make reindeer footprints in the snow on Christmas Eve when they lived up north, which reminded me of when one of my other friends made Easter Bunny footprints with flour across her living room floor last year, and I realized………

Whoa.

I could totally make reindeer footprints with flour!

And glitter!!!

And my kids were even more excited then I was once they saw them.

You see, I’d had quite a few conversations with my 4yo about Santa. One of her main concerns was how he was going to get into the house without a chimney. Which was clumsily explained away with some mutterings about him climbing through windows or something.

That led to her insisting that we not only cover the lawn with the “reindeer food” that she got in school {a combination of oatmeal and green glitter meant to attract the attention of the flying reindeer}, but that we also leave open the window and glass door blinds to make sure that Santa could see inside.

And after all of her worrying, I thought it would be nice to leave some “proof” behind that Santa – and his reindeer – DID, in fact, make it to our house on Christmas Eve.

I used flour to represent the snow that stuck to the reindeer feet when they were up north where it’s cold, and the glitter was because the reindeer are magical.

How to Make Snowy Floridian Reindeer Footprints from RoamingRosie.com

What I did was mix together some flour and glitter, and then sprinkle it over the front walk with a small mesh colander.

To Make the Reindeer Footprints, you’ll need:

1 cup flour
1/2 cup fine silver glitter
small mesh colander
cardboard cutout of reindeer feet

And I would totally upload a reindeer foot template if I had one, but as you can see in the photos, I simply took a thin piece of cardboard, drew a couple of circles on them, drew a triangle in the tops of those circles, and used a box cutter to very carefully cut out the shapes.

Grandmas wasn’t fully convinced that that’s what reindeer footprints would actually look like, but I thought it was pretty spiffy.

Anyway, mix together the flour and glitter, and cut out your cardboard template ahead of time. If it’s not going to rain, you could make the footprints late Christmas Eve – especially if you think your children will awake before you on Christmas morning.

To transfer the footprints to a sidewalk/patio/balcony/etc., scoop the flour mixture out of the bowl with the small colander and shake it gently over the template until the cutout hole is covered. Lift template and there’s your footprint!

Ours lasted for about 4 days. And there’s still a bit of glitter floating around. :)

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