Fast Festive Meals for Busy Moms
Welcome to the last day of the 12 Days of Christmas series!
For the past 12 days I’ve been sharing simple Christmas activities. These have been easy tips to help busy working homeschool moms inject some holiday spirit into their days. Today I’m sharing tips for fast festive meals.
Keep Fast Festive Meals Simple
Spoiler alert! If you’re expecting recipes for Christmas dinners or New Year’s Brunch dishes, you’re out of luck. This post is all about fast and simple ways to make regular meals, well, festive. And none of them take more than 15 minutes.
Ready? Here we go.
Add Fruit for Breakfast
The easiest way to make any meal or dish festive is to consider the colors. Most of us associate red and green as Christmas colors. So find quick ways to add something red or green to your regular breakfast meals.
Do you regularly serve oatmeal? Chop up a Red Delicious apple and a Granny Smith apple and add it to the oatmeal. Call it Christmas porridge. Share a fast Christmas story or listen to a holiday story audiobook over breakfast to start your day off right.
If your children eat cold cereal or granola and yogurt for breakfast, add a handful of red raspberries, cranberries, or strawberries for a hit of Christmas red.
Lunch With Green & Red Veggies
Make fast festive meals by looking for opportunities to add green and red veggies. At lunchtime, this might mean serving raw, chopped veggies with a small dish of veggie dip. Add these vegetables to your shopping list:
- green peppers
- red peppers
- cucumbers
- cherry tomatoes
- broccoli
- radishes
- snow peas
During the month of December, I also add a Christmas baking treat to the kids’ lunch plates. This is a simple holiday tradition that they love.
Simple Holiday Snacks for Kids
So I try to make healthy food choices for my family whenever I can. Yet the holidays often find me throwing caution to the wind -especially when it comes to holiday snacks and desserts.
And yes, choosing red and green fruit such as avocado, green grapes, honeydew, red and green apples, cherries, and all the red berries mean healthy and festive too. However, you’ll also find some really fun and not-so-healthy simple snacks.
Here’s a quick list of fast festive snacks that include a variety of both.
- Christmas fruit tray
- Two Sisters Crafting – Grinch Popcorn (seriously, green marshmallow sauce takes just minutes to make. Add red M & Ms – or dried cranberries and some white marshmallows and you get a bowl full of Christmas cheer)
- Our Full Plate – Christmas Tree Fruit Platter (takes me less than 10 minutes to put together and the kids think it’s super cute)
Fast Festive Dinners for Busy Moms
As with breakfast and lunch, look for ways to add colorful fruit and vegetables to your regular dishes for fast festive meals during the month of December.
Some of the simplest ways to do this include
- topping a frozen pizza with red and green pepper rings
- adding cherry tomatoes and broccoli to spaghetti sauce
- adding radishes and cucumbers to a tossed salad
Okay, I know I said this post wouldn’t include complicated recipes, but I am going to include a few links here. They’re simple recipes with extra ideas on how to make your holiday meals festive without too much extra work. I hope you find them inspiring!
- Once a Month Meals Deck the Table with Red and Green Recipes
- Make and Takes Plan and Prepare a Red and Green Meal
- Food Network Red and Green Recipes are the Ultimate Holiday Decor
What are your favorite fast Christmas meal cheats? I’d love to know. Share them in the comments!.