Little Hands Learning | Christmas box review

“A monthly subscription box, inspired by the magic of books”

I promise this is the last of my Christmas posts now, and it's a good one. December marked our fourth Little Hands Learning box and what a find that was! Alfie loves receiving his subscription box in the post. And equally, I love reading the stories and helping with the activities. Of course, December's Box had a Christmas theme, and it didn't disappoint.

The book in the Christmas box was called Last Stop on the Reindeer Express – written by Maudie Powell-Tuck and illustrated by Karl James Mountford. The illustrations were so beautiful and intricately detailed, bringing to life the magic of Christmas. There were lift-the-flap and peep-through pages which were really engaging, and the story itself was so touching – depicting the importance of family and what a wonderful time of year Christmas can be. Obviously, the underlining narrative is about broken families, which can be a difficult subject to talk about, but it explains beautifully that no matter where your loved ones are, they’re thinking about you and love you… definitely relatable given the last couple of years we've had!

The activities in the Christmas box were:

• Craft a Christmas tree
• Make a reindeer Christmas card
• Build a reindeer express small world
• Make Christmas spice biscuits

Oh Christmas tree

The Christmas tree craft was such a lovely idea, if a little fiddly. I roped mum in to help Alfie, set with the challenge of creating something for our table centrepiece as we were hosting Christmas dinner. I had some coloured crafting lolly sticks which was a nice touch and added a touch of colour – rather than using standard lolly sticks. A piece of playdough acted as a tree skirt and we mounted the tree on a piece of real Christmas tree – the end we had chopped off ours in 2019, which we had varnished to preserve it. Don't you think it looked great?!

We even used it as part of our small world scene, also using some pretend snow that Alfie received in his stocking. The playdough, which was provided in the box made reindeer footprints, which was lots of fun too.

Let's get messy

I love making cards with Alfie. I’ll always remember the first year he was at nursery, and I made reindeer handprints for all the staff… in the end, I think we made 16 in total! We used the paint again to make handprints and I'm keen to make some cards with the remaining paint, so watch this space!

Little Hands Learning shared some really lovely ideas on their Instagram for inspiration, but sadly Alfie was far more interested in making a mess than doing a controlled activity. There's no chance the cute robin design would have ever worked. I'm going to take matters into my own hands… see what I did there!

The Great Christmas Bake Off

And what's Christmas without baking and the smell of spices filling the air? This will be our go-to biscuit recipe in future because the texture was just spot on – the biscuits were so melt-in- the-mouth like shortbread, and the mixture of spices was just delicious. Alfie used my star cutters for the biscuits decorating with glace icing and sprinkles. The dry ingredients of the biscuit mixture were provided in the box and all we needed to do was add some butter – and then mix, form the dough, cut, and bake.

We ended up following the basic recipe, which was nice – but next time I'll experiment with other flavours, maybe cranberry & orange or chocolate & stem ginger for that Christmas touch. They would also make a really lovely gift, and I’m already thinking of making perhaps a cookie Christmas tree with this recipe next year.

As always, the box was beautifully arranged and so well thought out. Alfie loved this box, particularly the reindeer, which is still on our dining table. But given that Christmas is a time for family and togetherness, it was a really lovely box to do together – while celebrating the magic of the festive season.

Don’t forget, you can follow Little Hands Learning on Instagram and if you’re after more information on any of the boxes or how to subscribe or even gift a box, visit the website. And if you're looking for a discount on a future box or anything in the shop, use code: LUCYLOCKET.

Love, Lucy xx