Merry Christmas! Morning pranks and Santa's message - fun & creative gift giving ideas - Gift of family time

Merry Christmas from our family to yours.

Hope everyone has a wonderful holiday season and Happy New Year!

We always do fun pranks, clues, and Santa's message to find their gift.

New set of prank boxes. The details on each box are so funny.

The inside flaps says, PRANK YOU! Don't get too excited, your real gift is inside. 

 I like them for Christmas but you could use them for birthdays or any gift.

I found several at Wal-Mart.

But my absolute favorite this year was this gift.

Rule was that he had to open all the clues before guessing.

3 boxes filled with clues. 

The fun part was that the first two boxes of clues were just random words. 

I kept saying, "missing sock, don't you get it?!" "Think about the clues." "Forest, neck, dishes.....did you figure it out?" 

LOL!!! The confused look was hilarious. 

The third box had the clues. He got a new bike. :)

I didn't use it for a gift card but did hide Santa's clue in it. 

Fun game from Santa. I can't wait to play. 

Update: We had so much fun playing on NYE. Almost more fun without the game.

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Ready - Set - GLOW! - Glow-in-the-Dark BUBBLES

FUN but a bit of a disappointment. :( Not a complete disappointment because the jars look REALLY REALLY cool and I'll definitely use them a different way in the future. If anything, we had fun playing. Here's what we did. Attempt 1, 2 and 3 :)


  Attempt #1 - Glow sticks & Bubbles

Filled the jars with bubbles

We used HUGE glowsticks to save time instead of opening a bunch of little ones. Plus the glass capsule is large inside these and easy to remove. Smaller glow sticks may break into tiny pieces and I didn't want shards of glass in the jars.

Activated the glow sticks by snapping them 

WOW!! I love how bright they turned out. If anything, they could be used for a party to light an entry way or outside at night. If used around a pool I would not use glass jars.

Ready to head outside. At the time I didn't notice the glowing solution started settling at the bottom, separating from the bubbles.

Boys ready with several different bubble blowing tools. We tried a few times but not happy with the results.  We shook the jars to mix the "glow" and bubbles better but that seemed to make the brightness decrease. :/ 

You can see the solution on the bubbles but you couldn't tell they were glowing. The bubble gun and drops from the bubble gun were glowing ....just NOT the bubbles. 

Attempt #2 - Glow Fusion Bubbles

These were purchased at Michael's Craft store for $3.99. I read the directions and the IDEAL conditions seemed like it should read "when Jupiter is PERFECTLY aligned with Earth these bubbles will work" :D I'm kidding but the instructions say -

Glow Fusion bubbles do glow, however, the effect is nearly impossible to see unless the following conditions are met:
  1. Complete preparation steps
  2. Ensure you are in complete darkness with no ambient lighting
  3. Cover glowing bottle with a black trash bag or other light concealing material, leaving only the top opening exposed
  4. Use the infusion wand to blow the bubbles
  5.Bubbles will only glow for the first 20 minutes after they have been mixed together

The solution was really bright but we really couldn't see the bubbles glowing. 

It wasn't a total loss.... The boys had the best time "painting" in the dark with the solution. We didn't follow step #3 about covering the container with black tape so your eyes don't need to adjust from seeing the bright jars to the lightly glowing bubbles. Not sure if that would've made a difference. 

Attempt #3 - Highlighter and bubbles

This attempt never happened. After reading the mixture can stain and a black light is needed..... HOW would this be a good idea indoor or outdoor?? :(

 If anyone has another way, please share.

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