Holiday Fun: Play with Your Food
Sometimes we tell our children, “don’t play with your food”, but around this time of year we are all making special treats with food for the holidays. We are decorating Christmas cookies or making pretty center pieces for the tables. I have seen cranberry trees and repurposed ornaments for muffin or hot chocolate mixes. Why do the cookies and the treats get to have all the fun? Hubby and I are eating healthy now and we are teaching our boy to eat healthy as well. Why not play with your food in a healthy way, too?
My boy loves his chicken nuggets. Anytime we ask for his opinion on dinner, he is asking for nuggets and brocolli, so I decided this weekend would be all about dressing up our Tyson chicken nuggets for the holidays! I picked up my boy’s favorite frozen foods at Sam’s Club to prepare for our project!
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Recently, we made some sausage shish-ka-bobs and my boy had so much fun helping Daddy thread the meat and vegetables on the skewers so I knew we needed to use them again for this project.
He decided to start with a gingerbread man so he put a few nuggets on a skewer and set to making his man.
I started with one nugget and carefully placed three skewers through it. I had to find one of the thicker nuggets, which wasn’t a problem because the Tyson nuggets are so plump and juicy. Once I had my “star” started, I filled up the skewers with four nuggets on each arm.
My boy used ranch and ketchup to decorate his gingerbread man. We made it snow on the gingerbread man, but he was not quite colorful enough so a “few” green sprinkles were the final touch. When I told him that this was our lunch, he decided to make three small sandwiches as well.
I finished off my Tyson chicken nuggets snowflake with ranch and ketchup (before my little man sprinkled snow {parmesan cheese} and added color {green sprinkles}) and I thought it would make a great centerpiece for a kids’ Christmas party!
Of course, then Baby Elf decided to get into it while we were sleeping…that silly elf!
The weekends when Hubby is working is always a fun time for my boy and me to play and have fun activities. We are always busy with some new craft or toy and this weekend was no exception. Next time you start to tell your children, “don’t play with your food”, instead think of a creative way for them to PLAY with their food!
What creative ways would you play with your food?!!
I am a member of the Collective Bias™ Social Fabric® Community. This shop has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Collective Bias™ and Tyson #MealsTogether #CBias #SocialFabric. All stories and opinions are my own.
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Love love the look on your darlings face as you are cooking those nuggets! Priceless. My 3 year old like all three year olds should really look emaciated if we are going on how much food he actually consumes. Truthfully, he rarely eats-but I don’t worry because the other three got through this stage just fine and now they eat me out of house and home. Three weeks ago my husband ran through McD’s much to my chagrin and bought a 20 pack of nuggets to eat for his midnight “lunch” (he works nights) my 3 year old at 18!!!!! yes I said 18 nuggets in one sitting. We just sat there in amazement watching him. Normally I wouldn’t let him, but since he had refused food all day, I figured he might truly be hungry. He literally passed out asleep 5 minutes after eating! It isn’t a hysterical story, but you would have laughed had you been watching him gobble down that junk food, sigh
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Oh goodness! That sounds like something my boy would do. He has been asking his daddy to cook ribs and chicken wings and last weekend we had ribs. As he was chowing down on his 5th?6th? rib, I hear some crunching so I look at him and he was eating the bone! It was the cartilage part at the end (ew!) but I told him that he didn’t need to eat that and we had more! Last night he was so mad that we wouldn’t get him a Happy Meal that he started yelling he was going to run away to the store and cook ribs! Boys are so crazy.
Very cute! I got into playing with my food when I made cherry cream cheese pastries for Christmas. I used crescent rolls and twisted and made shapes, like working with play dough. They turned out cute
Haha, love the nug-kabobs. Now I want some chicken nuggets!
well I am glad it looks like the elf may have eaten some of those nuggets, because after the green sprinkles were added I doubt anyone else would , the snowflake idea is a cute one though
Imagine all the shapes and colors children could learn about by playing with food. If they start forming private body parts, I’m afraid you’re on your own!
This is such a great idea! Kids love kabobs. My nieces love making them. We want to make one of the fruit Christmas trees. Thank you for the great post!
I love to make foods with my niece. She is so proud of herself when she cooks or makes anything. We decorated gingerbread men this year and she had a blast. We also have lots of fun making crafts for her to give her family for gifts on Christmas. Thanks for the nugget idea. I am sure she would love this one.
Well my first idea is let the one year olds have their own little cake for their birthday and see what can happen. Makes great first time pictures. But 2nd we like to use the different shaped macaroni for designs and stuff. They work best before cooked. Also we cut hot dog to look like octopuses the kids have fun tearing them apart
myy sons favorite thing is to put his food in his cup of milk and then take it out and eat it loll he also lovess to tease the dogss
I like the idea of the Nugget Shish-ka-bob…but the green sprinkles kind of put me off! Don’t think I could go that one.
Nice job! I love the “Elf” touch in the story!! Looks like you guys had fun with the nuggets! The star is pretty!
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Awww! cute ideas. (Love that the Elf got involved =] I have really to to get me an Elf!
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Thanks! Our elf is pretty mischievious. My son actually gets excited on the days when he DOESN’T get into trouble.