I can always tell when Christmas is approaching at my house. No, not because of a Christmas tree or stockings or eggnog or other normal signs of the season. It’s because of glitter! When I find that everything I seem to own is covered in glitter, it means it is time for Christmas! Actually, the sparkle and shine of the holidays is one of my favorite parts. I can’t resist anything sparkly.  My most recent glitter project involved a mailbox.  Little Jo started asking me about mailing her letter to Santa the other day.  I know there are lots of options for getting a letter to Santa but I decided I wanted to create a new tradition at our house.

I sent my husband to the hardware store to find a white mailbox.  Not because I am not capable of doing so but just because hardware stores seem to make men happy and when it is this close to my birthday and Christmas, I want him as happy as possible!  Anyway, he returned home with the plain white mailbox and I went to work jazzing it up.  I can’t tell you how much I wanted to spray paint this but I resisted because I like how well the red glitter letters pop out against the white mailbox.  There are no instructions or limitations for decorating the mailbox.  Let your imagination run wild and make something that will match your decor and make you smile.  I only decorated one side and the front right now because I want to decoupage some of my daughter’s actual letters to Santa on the other side.  Since I don’t have any right now, I just left it blank.

Now, for how you use the mailbox.  On the eve of November 30th (coincidentally my birthday) you have your child place his or her letter to Santa inside.  Then, you explain that if he is a good little boy or girl, then Santa will leave a small present in the box every morning until Christmas morning.  I am certain Little Jo will wake up very excited every morning to see if Santa left something for her.  And I am betting she will be extra good before Christmas!  I told my sister-in-law about this project and she demanded I make her a magic mailbox as well!

Once Christmas morning arrives and your child has opened all the presents from Santa and the excitement has died down, make sure he or she writes a thank you note to Santa and places it inside the mailbox.

If you decide to do a Santa’s mailbox with your kids this year, please share your pictures of how you decorated it by emailing them or putting them in our Flikr group.  Who knows, maybe Chica and I will come up with a prize to give to our favorite mailbox!