Kick off the holiday season with this fun letter to Santa stationery set!
Make your Santa letter extra special this year with a baking-themed stationery set for kids.
This set has wide lines and lots of writing space for younger writers.
Your child can write to Santa on one of six sheets of custom stationery paper. This paper is also perfect for writing holiday letters to family members and friends because there are three designs included with your paper set. You will find a gingerbread cookie, colourful sprinkles and baking holiday cookies. Two of each design!
Each Letter To Santa Stationery Set Includes:
6 sheets of custom paper (11 x 8.5 inches)
3 bright red envelopes (size 10)
1 red pencil silver foil embossed with the words “I believe”
FREE SHIPPING in North America.
Proceeds from this stationery set support Petit Mail’s Send Happiness Pen Pal Project. This project creates cultural learning between local students and children in another country via a pen pal exchange.
Spend some time together this holiday season while you drink hot chocolate and practise your letter writing. These stationery sets make a fantastic mailbox surprise for your own child, a grandchild, nieces, nephews, or ANYONE who enjoys writing letters.
Wait, there’s more! I know not everyone out there has a child, grandchild, niece or nephew of the right age to share the wonderful letter to Santa stationery. So I created something else for the holiday line that works for almost anyone.
Holiday Cookies Themed Greeting Cards
These holiday card sets are perfect for sending happy snail mail and are fantastic value (just $2.50 per card/envelope)and the baking theme is perfect for the season.
Included in your card set:
10 baking themed cards (blank inside)
10 red envelopes (5×7)
All proceeds from this stationery set support Petit Mail’s Send Happiness Pen Pal Project – creating cultural learning between local students and children in another country via a pen pal exchange.
When I was planning our family trip from Canada to London in June with our four year old son and eight year old daughter, one of the top things on my “to do list” for our visit was finding the best kids afternoon tea in London.
Kid-Friendly Afternoon Tea – St. Ermin’s Hotel, London
When planning special activities on trips, I always do plenty of research. There are SO many options for insanely cute and delicious afternoon tea spots for kids and families in London – it made the decision really hard.
A few blogs recommended the afternoon tea at St. Ermin’s Hotel, so I explored this option further. It’s the one we chose and I’m blogging about our experience because:
It was fantastic and I will remember this experience for a lifetime (and hopefully the kids will too)
Some of the blogs I read for reviews/information were a little bit outdated, so I’m adding to the conversation with updated details.
The Best Kids Afternoon Tea In London – More About Our Choice
I was so happy that we chose the St. Ermin’s Hotel – in my opinion, it’s one of the best kids afternoon tea experiences in London, for both value and experience.
The hotel and tea rooms are located in Westminster and the setting is absolutely beautiful. I was a little worried that we would be underdressed, as we had packed lightly for a 2 week vacation, but everyone seemed welcome and there was a wide variety of clothing styles being worn by tea guests – from sundresses to jeans. On the day we visited, I saw children of many different ages enjoying tea. Our four year old had a great time!
What We Ate
At the St. Ermin’s Hotel afternoon tea children have the option to choose tea OR hot chocolate – all still served in china tea cups. Both of mine chose the hot chocolate option, and as you can see, there were no complaints!
The children’s afternoon tea, called the “Mini Gardener Tea” , comes in a special wooden crate, and costs £18 per child. It includes all kinds of amazing treats, like:
a shortbread cookie and the icing supplies to decorate your cookie,
a milk chocolate and salted caramel pot (yes, the pot is completely chocolate, and edible!) YUM,
a marshmallow mushroom,
sandwiches and scones.
This experience was extra special for our family because we got to experience it all for my 37th birthday! I love having these photos to look back on for years to come. In case you can’t tell from this photo, I am LOVING every moment of the afternoon tea experience.
The St. Ermin’s Hotel itself is a beautiful, historic building with lots of character, charm and history. The staff were extremely friendly and accommodating, and I especially loved being greeted by the doorman in his bowler hat – how very British!
If you are thinking about an afternoon tea in London with your children, I highly recommend St. Ermin’s Hotel for quality, experience and price. One of the most affordable children’s afternoon tea options I found in Central London, it did not disappoint.
I hope to be able to return again in a few years for another afternoon tea with our kids and recreate this photo again! This trip made me realize how much I want to travel and experience the world together as a family.
I’ve been focused on these core values of family connection and experiences over things for a while now, and it guides so many of my projects, including the whole idea around my business Petit Mail. The experience of spending time together as a family, exploring and learning new things are all so important to me and these are moments that I want to share with you as well.
The family travel moments are so special, but as a full time working outside-the-home mom, I try to carve out special moments every single day, even just for a few minutes each day. Sometimes we read, create, or do “special projects”. I wanted to share that experience with other families with young children, so I created Petit Mail.
It’s an easy, fun experience for families of preschoolers and early readers.
Petit Mail story postcard subscriptions arrive once per month in bright, fun envelopes, addressed directly to your child. The illustrated stories are perfect for reading out loud together, and have activity suggestions and inspiration. Our themes include art, science, nature, imaginative play, and more!
Children everywhere LOVE to receive mail – it brightens their day and brings a huge smile to their faces. Our goal is to create MORE smiles in 2019 with the Send Happiness Project.
Here at Petit Mail, in addition to our story postcards, I want to GIVE BACK to my community in the best way I know how – by creating FUN snail mail experiences for children at no charge. In January 2019, I created a Newfoundland and Labrador – Uganda pen pal exchange as part of my #sendhappiness project.
About The Send Happiness Pen Pal Project
I created special pen pal stationery for the Send Happiness Project featuring all four Petit Mail characters.
We gave approximately 300 elementary students in Newfoundland and Labrador special stationery and envelopes to write a pen pal letter to a student in Uganda. The stationery printing was sponsored by local printer Cre8iv Design & Print (thank you!)
We coordinated the delivery of the pen pal letters (in partnership with Jorja’s Journeys) to children in Uganda and provided the approximately 300 students at the Ssuubi School with special stationery to write a letter back to their pen pal.
Jorja’s Journeys delivered the pen pal letters back to us and we brought them back to the original schools to complete the exchange!
Students in both countries got to learn more about each other – a once in a lifetime opportunity!
Watch More Of The Send Happiness Project In Progress
Images From Our Send Happiness Pen Pal Exchange
All Uganda images provided by Jorja’s Journeys
The Send Happiness Project has been an AMAZING experience for everyone involved, including me! It has been so rewarding to see the images shown above and to hear the stories from teachers here in Newfoundland and Labrador.
Thanks to Jorja’s Journeys, local students got to see what school is like for children on the other side of the world – and communicate with them as well!
I delivered the letters in person back to our local schools, and I even got to spend some time with students in Ms. Pottle’s Grade 3 class at St. Theresa’s Elementary. We read our pen pal letters together, and looked at some of the amazing pictures of students in Uganda writing their pen pal letters. Thanks for a great visit Grade 3’s!
About Petit Mail
Petit Mail is an Atlantic Canada business owned and operated by mom and entrepreneur Alison Butler. Our goal is to share the JOY of snail mail with children.
Story Postcards Petit Mail story postcards are special stories delivered monthly by snail mail – designed for ages 3 to early reader. The double-sided, illustrated stories encourage reading skills, creativity, imagination, self esteem and more!
With so much of our days filled with technology, it is a wonderful treat to receive real paper mail.
Give your child the gift of a monthly snail mail surprise.
Petit Mail provides something to look forward to receiving together and encourages quality time together as a family. It’s fun, affordable, and gives you a unique way to spend quality time with your kids. Read together and let your story card inspire new ideas and new ways to play!
Welcome to Pen Pal School! The space for creative kids to learn more about letter writing and discover the JOY of snail mail!
Pen Pal school has EVERYTHING you need to get started with letter writing, including a stationery set AND a pen pal to write to.
It can be challenging to find a reliable pen pal for your child, so we are making it easy! No more giving your address out to strangers, long response times, or no response from pen pals.
Being a busy working mom with two kids (or any number of kids) is NOT easy.
If we haven’t “met” yet, hello!
I’m Alison, I create Petit Mail, a snail mail subscription experience for preschoolers and early readers, work a full time job at a local non-profit and have two munchkins. Around the time I was pregnant with my son, simplifying and minimalism became regular words in my vocabulary.
I’ve learned so much and I have so many tips, ideas and resources that I want to share with you. These are the tools that I use at home every day to keep my life from feeling totally out of control!
5 Tips To Simplify Kids Clothing
Accept Previously Loved Clothing – this helps to save so much money. You don’t have to keep everything you are given, and can donate or pass along items if you feel you have enough.
Shop At Children’s Consignment Stores – you can find clothing at a fraction of the price, sometimes with the tags still on! Plus this keeps clothing out of the landfill. This works particularly well for babies and toddlers, when clothing is usually in excellent condition.
Purchase Handmade Clothing (Or Make It Yourself!) – if you have less items, you can invest in beautiful, quality, handmade pieces. Support local makers and small business!
Don’t Have More Than What You Need – Anyone ever notice that a lot of children will wear their favourite outfits all the time? Many children are natural minimalists at heart! Get your kids involved – they might be better at simplifying their closets than you are.
Donate or Consign Frequently – I pass along our previously loved children’s clothing to other families regularly. We keep a bag/basket at the top of each child’s closet – as soon as something comes out of the laundry that we know is too small, it gets placed in the donation area. When the bag is full, we try to pass it along right away. We bring gently loved toys and books that our children have outgrown to a local consignment store.
This is just ONE of the areas where I have made changes to make our life at home easier. You can also read more about how we have reduced our screen time at home to make more room for FAMILY time!
I often feel that weight of working mom guilt, but, one of my solutions has always been to spend short, quality amounts of time with my children – reading, creating, doing “special projects”. I wanted to share that experience with other families, so I created Petit Mail.
It’s an easy, fun experience for families of preschoolers and early readers.
Petit Mail story postcard subscriptions arrive once per month in bright, fun envelopes, addressed directly to your child. The illustrated stories are perfect for reading out loud together, and have activity suggestions and inspiration. Our themes include art, science, nature, imaginative play, and more!
In our house, we love to read about other cultures and traditions and today I welcome guest blogger Lauren Ranalli, author of The Great Latke Cook Off to help us learn about Chanukah and her traditions with her children at home!
If I’m being honest, I start thinking about December sometime around mid-summer. As part of an interfaith family, with my son’s birthday at the beginning of the month, December has always been a Birthday-Chanukah-Christmas extravaganza. And not always in the best way! The prospect of gift buying and giving can be frustrating and I get overwhelmed by the idea of SO. MUCH. STUFF.
After a few years of turmoil and failed attempts with well-meaning grandparents to limit the influx of new toys, I decided on two things.
Let Christmas be Christmas, in all it’s big-piles-of-presents-glory. The magic and the anticipation is something that won’t last forever. So I’m not going to mess with it.
Remember that Chanukah is not “the Jewish Christmas”. As far as Jewish celebrations are concerned, Chanukah is not considered a major holiday. Growing up, presents were definitely involved, but what I remember most is food and family.
Last year, those memories were translated in my first children’s book, “The Great Latke Cook Off”- a Chanukah story about family tradition, friendly competition, and delicious recipes (and not one mention of gifts).
Reading the finished book to my kids for the first time was one of the most rewarding experiences of my life! Now that the book has been published, I have started to hear from readers across the country. Many people have shared that this book reminds them of their own family experiences or that it has inspired them to start new cooking traditions. I couldn’t ask for better feedback!
For myself, publishing the book helped me focus in on what I love about Chanukah- family traditions and food! Here are a few of the ways my family celebrates during this busy time of year:
Involve others: Each year, we pick one night of Chanukah to invited friends (of all faiths) over to play dreidel and make latkes. I love sharing my grandmother’s recipe with our neighbors, especially those who are enjoying it for the first time!
Focus on experiences: I love to give gifts that allow us to spend time together and help my kids learn new skills. It’s fun to find creative ways for them to unwrap swim lessons, movie tickets, or a coupon for a special dinner out. I round out the others nights with gifts of books and games, things that can be enjoyed again and again.
Give back: Tzedakah, or charity, is an important part of Judaism. So we choose one night of Chanukah to not receive gifts, but to donate gifts to others. My kids love going to the store to pick out presents that a child their age will enjoy. And we also take the opportunity to clean out the house and donate items to local non-profits for families in need of assistance (a win-win!). It has become one of our favorite nights of Chanukah and something we all look forward to.
Whatever your religious or non-religious affiliations, I hope that you’ll find ways to create your own traditions of time with family, friends, and good food. Definitely good food!
Lauren Ranalli is a children’s book author, public health professional, and mom to two high-spirited, fiercely lovable children. Her books include “The Great Latke Cook Off” and the forthcoming “Snow Day at the Zoo”, “Places We Have Never Been”, and “Tap Dance Ninja”. You can find out more about her work at laurenranalli.com or follow her on Instagram: @lauren.ranalli_author, Facebook: @Lauren Ranalli, author, or Twitter: @LRanalli_author.
If you love book suggestions for preschoolers and early readers, be sure to follow me on Instagram or Facebook where I regularly share the books we love to read at home!
I’ve been focused on these core values of family connection and experiences over things for a while now, and it guides so many of my projects, including the whole idea around my business Petit Mail. The experience of spending time together as a family, exploring and learning new things are all so important to me and these are moments that I want to share with you as well.
As a full time working outside-the-home mom, I try to carve out special moments every single day, even just for a few minutes each day. Sometimes we read, create, or do “special projects”. I wanted to share that experience with other families with young children, so I created Petit Mail.
It’s an easy, fun experience for families of preschoolers and early readers.
Petit Mail story postcard subscriptions arrive once per month in bright, fun envelopes, addressed directly to your child. The illustrated stories are perfect for reading out loud together, and have activity suggestions and inspiration. Our themes include art, science, nature, imaginative play, and more!
We are discovering some really simple ways to PREP for art exploration – like making this really simple DIY liquid watercolor paint together.
I’ve been wanting to try liquid watercolor with my 3 year old and I found this simple + inexpensive idea via Katie at Preschool Inspirations (thank you so much!)
This project cost about $10 to make 6 different colours (pretty great, right!)
I purchased the glass jars from our local dollar store, but you could also use containers you have around the house.
The BEST thing is that creating paint was an activity itself (perfect for a rainy day).
I’ll be sharing much more inspiration for subscribers as part of your story bonus material. We’ll do an art project together inspired by Oliver’s adventures this month. Can’t wait to get started!
Looking for more FUN and easy activities to do with your preschooler or early reader?
Petit Mail story postcard subscriptions arrive in bright, fun envelopes, addressed once per month. The illustrated stories are perfect for reading out loud together, and have activity suggestions and inspiration. Our themes include art, science, nature, imaginative play, and more!
Inspired by our Olivia’s Pen Pal story postcard, I decided to try a kids pen pal exchange between preschoolers and the results were so fun!
Since we are still at an early writing stage, I wanted to keep things fun and simple so I created this pen pal letter template (available as a free bonus download for our subscriber community along with February’s bonus materials – so exciting!) so that we could write a letter to a friend.
So far, our pen pal exchange is exceeding my expectations, and has led to all kinds of playful learning and exploration. We have learned:
How to look places up on a map
Letter and word practice
How to address and letter (subscribers will find a video tutorial for kids in our bonus online membership materials for this month’s theme as well!)
Scissor practice (to cut out a photo)
and so much more!
Story postcard subscriptions from Petit Mail make it so easy to explore the pen pal experience. For just $10 a month* you create the opportunity to bring so much learning and fun into your home! Every month, you will find:
a bright fun envelope addressed to your child, arriving in your mailbox.
a colourful, illustrated story from Oliver, Audrey, Milo and Olivia sharing about art, science, creativity, nature and imagination.
the opportunity to cuddle up and read together and be inspired by new ideas.
bonus surprise items like stickers and bookmarks.
activity ideas, tutorials and videos available to subscribers online in the monthly BONUS link (included with your envelope).
the chance to be present and spend quality time with your child.
*for a 1 year subscription
If you love the idea of a snail mail subscription for the preschooler or early reader in your life, you can try your first story in Canada or the US for just $10 (postage included)
Alison shares more about the benefits of a preschool pen pal.
More About Our Preschool Pen Pal Exchange
To make the experience a little more educational, I added a hand-written note from me, telling a little bit more about our family, where we live, and the things we enjoy doing together. Given that it is still WINTER, one of our letters got a little wet when it arrived in its destination mailbox, and our package turned into a little bit of a rainbow, but that’s ok, we are embracing the wild color combination!
NJ was so excited to read something from another little girl her own age. We looked up Michigan on a map, and compared it to where we live in Newfoundland and Labrador.
One of our pen pals, Madelyn, wondered about what it’s like to live near the ocean (quick answer: our ocean is COLD and often stormy, but it’s still oh-so-beautiful) so our project for our next pen pal letter will be to find a nice day and to take some pictures (if we are REALLY lucky, we’ll find a day to get our picture taken with an iceberg in the background as it’s almost iceberg season when pieces of ice start to break off in the Arctic and float their way South). Maybe we will also share some fun facts about animals that we find here, like Puffins and Whales.
Overall, I loved this project and can’t wait to write more pen pal letters!
Pen Pal Tips For Young Children
If you are exchanging a letter with a child or family you don’t know very well, add your own notes to their letter. Share more about where you live, your family and how your family enjoys spending time together. This really helps to spark their interest in the overall experience.
Add stickers to your letter! Stickers are always a HUGE HIT, in fact, both of our letters were covered with stickers from top to bottom!
Not sure who to write to? Send your letter to a family member or friend with a child around the same age. Or, send mail to a relative of any age and encourage them to write back.
As part of my quest to spend quality moments with my children every day (even if we don’t have a LOT of time between work, daycare and meals/bedtime routines), I’ve been working on simplifying the ways that we explore together, especially with art!
I’ve put together some practical tips from one mom to another to encourage your child to explore and LOVE art!
1. Don’t be afraid of creating art with your preschooler!
I don’t believe that creating with our littles needs to be complicated, scary or unattainable. YOU CAN be a “creative mom” EVEN if you don’t feel like you are! At this stage, it’s more about the exploration than the outcome BUT that can be hard to remember as a mom in our Pin-tastic world of perfect projects! It’s OK to love all those Pins and use them for inspiration, but our child’s projects don’t have to look like that all the time.
2. It’s OK to be messy!
The key is to be prepared for messy art. Put down some garbage bags or purchase an inexpensive tarp or drop cloth from the dollar store or a local hardware store (these can be reused!)
Be sure to get your children to wear old clothes or painting smocks (I always wore an old shirt of my dad’s when I was little and working on messy “projects”
3. Have a few SIMPLE supplies on hand (here are mine)
You don’t need to have a lot of supplies at home to create art. A few things that I keep in our house for art projects are:
A large roll of white paper
Paintbrushes
Washable paint
Scissors
Coloured Paper
Crayons
Be sure to check out this tutorial for making your own DIY liquid water color paints. It’s a super simple project and we had so much fun creating it together!
4. Use Helpful Resources To Guide You
My goal is to make it really easy for you to connect + create together. Our story postcards arrive in your mailbox in a bright, fun envelope and have an illustrated story, perfect for reading with your preschooler or early reader.
Petit Mail stories always encourage you to learn and discover together with simple, age appropriate activity ideas perfect for learning at home.
The best part? You can try your first story for just $10 in Canada and the US (postage included)
This month, Oliver Explores ART and in our bonus subscriber videos (link included with your story postcard), I’ll be walking you through an art project that you can do together (no complicated materials needed!) – it’s going to be so much fun and I can’t wait for you to receive your cards this month.
Children everywhere LOVE to receive mail – it brightens their day and brings a huge smile to their faces. Our goal is to create MORE smiles (at least 500 in 2019, to be exact) with the Send Happiness Project.
Here at Petit Mail, we want to GIVE BACK in the best way we know how – by personally delivering snail mail to children who might need an extra smile in their day.
What is the Send Happiness Project?
You purchase a “Send Happiness Project” story postcard or letter (we’ll choose one based on the child’s age). Every postcard and letter purchased is delivered directly to a child.
We will match EVERY purchase with a donation (1 purchased = 1 donated)
We deliver a Petit Mail story to a child, in person, to brighten their day.
Card and letter themes for the Send Happiness Project include:
Audrey The Superhero
Milo Loves Reading
Oliver Explores Art
Petit Mail’s chosen mail delivery locations for 2019 include:
EVERY purchase of a story card or letter makes a difference and will bring a smile to a child’s face!
Cards and letters will be delivered between January and April, 2019.
The send Happiness Project is not affiliated with any religious or charitable organization. Petit Mail is an Atlantic Canada business owned and operated by mom and entrepreneur Alison Butler. Our goal is to bring smiles to the faces of children.
Story Postcards Petit Mail story postcards are designed for ages 3 to early reader. The double-sided, illustrated stories encourage reading skills, creativity, imagination, self esteem and more! Story postcards are delivered in a bright, fun envelope.
Letters
Petit Mail letters are written for children ages 6 and up. The double-sided, illustrated letter encourages reading skills, creativity, imagination, self esteem and more! Letters are delivered in a bright, fun envelope.
