We wanted to start up a new Christmas tradition of some sorts this year. It needed to be something we could do on a relatively low budget, without having to leave the house. A mooch about on Pinterest threw up the idea of a North Pole breakfast.

Lots of people do these alongside the ‘Elf on the Shelf’, using it as a way of welcoming the elf at the beginning of December or saying goodbye to him on Christmas Eve. We don’t do Elf on the Shelf (tried, failed miserably!) but I thought it would be a nice thing to do on the first weekend of December to get us into the festive spirit.

I popped to Asda and the Pound Shop the day before our North Pole breakfast to pick up a few supplies:

North Pole Breakfast

Red felt table runner

Jingle bells lights

Christmas colouring books

Christmas crackers

Chocolate Christmas Pudding balls

Marshmallows

Hot chocolate

Squirty cream

Pancakes

Chocolate chips

Strawberries

Croissants

Pain au Chocolat

On the morning of our North Pole breakfast, whilst the kids were in their rooms playing, we set up the table. We added a few battery operated tea lights and mini snow globes to make the table really festive.

For the breakfast, we put out little bowls with the chocolate pudding snowballs and marshmallows in and popped to pancakes in the toaster to warm up. We cut one of the pancakes into a triangle shape to make a hat and decorated them with chopped up strawberries, squirty cream and chocolate chips to look like Santa’s face. We also made a big jug of hot chocolate to pour out into our special jam jar glasses, and put out some croissants and pain au chocolat (a firm favourite for breakfast here!).

It only cost a few quid, but it was something we all enjoyed doing. It’s definitely something we will do again – probably before Christmas one more time, and then every year from now on.