Christmas Eve in a box. A tricky day to get through with excited children.

Christmas Eve is all excitement! All excitement, all the time. It is a day that is about patience and counting the minutes. For Children: waiting until Santa comes. For parents: waiting for the seemingly never ending day to end so they can sit down and relax for a few hours before the craziness takes over. Or maybe that's just me.

Some of the biggest problems parents face on this day are:

• Over excited kids. Exahusting.
• Impatient children.
• Children uninterested in sleep.
• Last minute preparations. There are some things that can only be done last minute.

When addressing these problems, the Christmas Eve box can definitely be your closest friend. Yes, It can designed to fit your family, to solve problems, not just add to the overwhelming excitement.

My personal aims for this year's Christmas Eve box:

• Make it fun.
• Make it repeatable (part of our family tradition.)
• Make it inclusive for all ages.
• Make it about the whole day (not just evening - we don't need added excitement then!)
• Make it exhausting for the kids.
• Make it time efficient and time creating for parents.

My personal how to:

1) Make a list of supplies early.

2) Buy supplies as part of my regular shopping.

3) Find a box that will fit the stuff.

4) Put everything in and stash it somewhere.

What I'm including:

• Christmas Eve bucket list, with boxes for the children to tick off each item. Basically this is a run sheet for the day. I know this sounds boring, but the kids like to know what is coming next, we need to make sure that nothing is forgotten, and it stops a great deal of repetitive questioning that wastes our day (remember it's 5 times every question around here!) There will be the things that are built into our day like Church at 6pm and visit Nana to give her a gift. I will be including active things as well as an after-lunch movie (Miracle on 34th street,) such as: jump on the trampoline for 5 minutes or play tip. I will be making it work for us too adding items like: make beds and tidy the back yard. Hopefully this will take the focus off 'tomorrow' and allow us all to have fun 'today.'

• Muffin recipe. This will be an activity for half an hour before morning snack time. Jack can easily lead this activity, freeing up myself to get last minute things done. Each child will feel a part of the making of the muffins, knowing Jack's obsession of inclusion for all. The kids can play outside for 15 minutes while the muffins are in the oven, then voila! Snack is ready. And a midnight snack is prepared for Santa;)

• Small milk bottles and Christmas coloured straws. This is a novelty to have their milk in, to go with the muffins.

• Christmas craft supplies, with a 'go for it!' encouragement label. This will probably be their favourite thing, especially when I give them the iPads to use Pinterest for ideas.

• Christmas movie. This will be watched after lunch. I am hoping Craig and I will get to sit down with the kids (except Daisy probably,) but if we have last minute stuff to do, this movie will give us some time.

• Christmas book. This will be one we already have, slipped into the box the night before. For bedtime.

• Christmas PJs (pre washed twice here due to allergy potential of fabric fillers.)

• Reindeer food. Think glitter, oats and carrots.

There are other fun ideas out there and it is great to personalise the box for your family. Add your ideas in the comments below for others families that may just be like yours.

Have a great Christmas Eve everyone!

Jen.x