Hip2Save This Holiday: Magic Reindeer Food
Wow! It seems that preparing Reindeer Food is a popular tradition among Hip2Save readers! Check out these 2 Holiday Submissions that I received.
Hip2Save This Holiday Guest Post submitted by reader Brandy…
Start a holiday tradition with your kids… Magic Reindeer Food! On Christmas Eve, sprinkle this magic reindeer food on your lawn. The sparkle of the glitter in the moonlight and the smell of the oats will guide Rudolph to your house!
What you’ll need:
Dry oatmeal
Glitter (Another option is to use colored sugar. It will still give the sparkly appearance, without being harmful to actual animals who may end up eating it.)
Cellophane treat bags
Labels (click HERE to download and print)
Simply mix the oats with a couple spoonfuls of the glitter. Add to cellophane bags & attach labels. Easy peasy! Great classroom gifts, party favors, etc.
Sprinkle it on the lawn, driveway, or apartment patio to entice the reindeer and give them something to munch on while Santa delivers his sleigh of goodies. Reindeer Food is perfect for those (young and old) who love the magic of Christmas!
Hip2Save This Holiday Guest Post submitted by reader Ilyssa…
I want to share my family’s favorite, fun and frugal Christmas tradition with you. Each Christmas Eve, my kids and I bake and decorate some sugar cookies for Santa. But we also love cook up a little something special for some of his helpers. So we make a treat for the reindeer. As it turns out, reindeer are really easy to cook for! This recipe calls for only 2 ingredients (which you will probably find in your home right now)!
“Christmas Magic” Reindeer Food
1/4 cup of oatmeal
2 tablespoons of glitter
My kids like to call the glitter “Christmas Magic.” Once you’ve mixed these two ingredients together, go spread it in the snow in front of your house. When Santa arrives, the reindeer will see the glistening “Christmas Magic” from the roof. They may just hop down and grab a bite or two.
Keep in mind that reindeer are not picky eaters. So these ingredients are very flexible. Some years we’ve used bread crumbs, flavored oatmeal or rainbow sprinkles. Whatever you’ve got in your stock pile will work!
In the morning, you will find that Santa ate all his cookies and the reindeer ate all their food too, leaving only the “Christmas Magic”. Hungry birds will help the reindeer finish their meal… and they don’t touch the glitter. You’ll be left with sparkly snow to remember your fun new tradition!
For more information on my Hip2Save This Holiday series and to learn how you can participate in the fun, click here!
When my oldest was 5, it rained Christmas night. The next morning he ran outside to look at the feed and screamed Rudolph puked!
LOL
Lol, that’s funny 🙂
Lol thats to funny !
The best thing to use is bird seed.
We buy our Reindeer food from breakfast with Santa every year at my kids school – they also sell “Snowman poop” which is mini marshmallows, and this year they added “Reindeer poop” which was chocolate covered nuts – the kids got such a kick out of those!
That food must be high in calories, those reindeer seem well fed! Thanks for sharing 🙂 Love the idea of using colored sugar to avoid hurting animals.
as a Vet Tech I am biting my tongue! Thanks for being considerate for the animals sake 😉
You may bite your tongue, but I won’t. See my response below.
I agree whoever said to put Glitter with Oatmeat is nuts.
I worked at an animal rescue and I agree, seeing stuff like this bothers me so much. Not a good idea to teach kids to put glitter in food… Even if it is to make it “magical” not worth hurting animals over.
I also like the idea of colored sugar sprinkles instead of glitter. I hate seeing the leftover glitter in the yard for weeks afterward. I’m ocd like that.
I use the sparkly snowflakes in our reindeer food. My kids love doing this every year.
Do you think this would be approrpiate as a classroom gift for my daughters Early Kindergarten class? I don’t want to upset any of the other parents, but think this is a cute affordable gift!! We already do it here at home each year!
My girls preschool teacher did it with them at their Christmas party last year
i actually ddi these for my daughter b-day a few years back only in hanna montana with candy and toys (small toys)as a loot bag but with her picture on it as hanna montana! they loved them i also did this with pop corn. the only thing that changes is the pix.
We do this every year. It is one of my favorite traditions!
My parents always had us leave carrots next to santa’s cookies so he could take them back up the chimney to feed the reindeer. There were always carrot nubs next to the cookie crumbs in the morning. We loved it more than the milk and cookies for santa!
That is what I did with my kids when they were growing up. They loved it!
Is there any way to print the labels without having to sign up and pay? I can’t figure out how! Thanks! 🙂
Hi Tracy – I have the labels available on my blog. Just right click the image & download to your desktop. https://themoodyfashionista.blogspot.com/2012/12/magic-reindeer-food.html
Thanks, Brandy! For some reason it still won’t download right. It’s all blurry! Oh well…it’s a great idea and maybe I can make my own image. Thanks again!
Email me @ Socialbutterflies_etsy at yahoo dot com & I’ll be happy to send you the file 🙂
Can you send me the file also, I sent you an email. Thanks
Can you also please email me your labels? I would greatly appreciate it. Email AngieAvon@comcast dot com
A better suggestion than either the glitter (*please* don’t put glitter out where animals can eat it! Would you want your dog or cat eating colored glitter?) or colored sugar (at least it’s edible, but still not great for the animals).
Just leave the oats – period. If the cookies for Santa don’t need toxins, neither does the food for the reindeer.
Plus if you’re teaching your children it’s okay to give *any* animal something that has non-food in it, you’re teaching your children that glitter is okay for anyone to eat.
When I make mine I use a mixture of oatmeal, oat bran, flax seed (if I have it on hand) and italian seasonings 🙂 the green from the seasoning adds color and is all natural! We have pets, and the thought of glitter all over my house gives me nightmares!
Good for you! Hopefully the outdoor critters have a Sicilian sense of taste. ;->
Hahah too funny 😉
I wish there was a “like” for your statement 🙂
I agree completely…my first thought is harming the outdoor animals. When my little ones are old enough, we’ll do carrots for the reindeer. Its more realistic than a small bag of oats and glitter in my opinion!
Flying reindeer are pretty realistic too! Lol I always thought carrots were a cute idea 🙂 Plus you can get kids to eat them by telling them it’s reindeer food.
Destinee, I completely agree. We have been leaving carrots for the reindeer for years. I have worked at an animal rescue and can’t tell everyone enough how dangerous glitter is for animals to digest……very harmful idea this is….. Please do not put glitter in it!!!
Thank you so much for this post! I’m with you for the animals’ sake.
We started making reindeer food when my oldest was 3 (now 11)…. Only, in our family, the men have to sprinkle it on the roof!! Haha… It started as a fun way to pick on the men in my family. On Christmas eve we made the food with the kids, and told them that the glitter was Tinkerbell’s fairy dust. Then each kiddo took a big bag home with an instruction poem noting the Dads had to put it on the roof. Each kid got to throw a handful for good measure, too. It was a HUGE hit!
We have a reindeer food tube that was purchased and given to us as a gift. In case anyone wants other Label ideas that don’t include Glitter here ya go… “If Santa’s reindeer come within 100 miles of your home, they will smell our Magical Reindeer Food and come immediately to your home, bringing Santa and his sleigh to deliver your presents!” “Here’s how the magic works: Right before going to bed on Christmas Eve, sprinkle our Magical Reindeer food all across your yard- anywhere in the yard will work. Make sure you don’t pile it all in one spot though, because the more you sprinkle it around, the more the magic is working. As soon as you’re done, you have to go right to bed as fast as you can, because if Santa comes and you aren’t asleep, he may not come back!! We do this at our house and it works every time! Good luck, sleep tight, and Merry Christmas from our family to yours.” It also has a disclaimer on the back “This product is not edible for children- Only Reindeer.”
Glitter is not a good idea. There wil be so many different animals that will come to check out this food (frogs, birds, raccoons, etc) and they could be seriously hurt by ingesting this. 🙁 dont get me wrong it’s very cute but could harm some animals. Just my thoughts…
If you glittery looking sprinkles, like you would use on sugar cookies, you would get the same effect without harming any curious hungry creatures.
This is a cute idea that I think we will do this year, except we will skip the glitter. A) My husband HHHHHAAAATTTTTEEEEESSSSSS glitter, and B) we will be at my in-laws house so I wouldn’t want to risk my young kids getting glitter everywhere in their house (plus I will be lucky if they have any oatmeal in the house at all) 🙂
We’ve done this for years, My 14 year old still does it so the little kids (siblings) believe. I always take tons of pictures, this is really a fun tradition. I have a bucket of stail oats in my cold storage that is labeled reindeer food and it’s lasted for years now!
We’ve always used birdseed – never glitter. You don’t want to poison any pets or wildlife.
I wish Collin would change the post to discourage the glitter idea.
I don’t care how cute it is. It’s just not worth it to cause injury to outdoor animals.
we go to our back deck and each throw a mini carrot onto our roof, my son loves it since that is where the reindeer go anyway.
I forget how, but you can make edible glitter using sugar and food coloring. I think you throw it in the oven on 350 degrees farenheit and let it bake for 10 minutes. You may have to search the web for the recipe so you know how much sugar and food coloring to use. That way, no animals are harmed and the edible glitter makes a cute decorative topping for cookies, cakes, cupcakes, etc…
I think it would be a better idea to use sparkling sugar or turbinado sugar instead of the glitter. Or maybe just mix with some birdseed. The idea of putting glitter (which is made of tiny pieces of metal) all over the ground seems like a very bad idea to me.
My mother in law uses a similar recipe, only instead of glitter, she uses colored sugar crystals. This way, if her students eat it (1st graders) she doesn’t get angry calls from the parents. Growing up, we always left carrots for Rudolph.
I am sooooo glad I came upon this post! I will be using the bags of real glitter/oatmeal for a craft insted of “reindeer food”. I am working on new baggies for the kiddos now. Oatmeal and edible “glitter”! Don’t want to harm any animals, plus what if the kids decide they want to try it out?!… Thanks again!
As someone dealing with a mouse/RAT problem within 2 days of putting up a hanging birdfeeder I will pass on this cute idea.