For the last few years (since kids, basically), as soon as the first of December rolls around, my house starts smelling like cinnamon and sugar.
Do you know why? Because we always kick of Christmas with a North Pole Breakfast.
It coincides nicely with the Elf on the Shelf tradition if you partake in that particular festive novelty – no prizes for guessing that we do that one too! ๐๐
The North Pole Breakfast is supposed to be the elf’s welcome breakfast – I think – but basically, it’s just an excuse to eat sweets in the morning. Obviously then, it started in America.
It’s great fun for the kids though, and you don’t have to let them eat themselves sick. I like it because it creates an official starting point for the Christmas period. For us, this is when the festive season truly begins.
I also like it because I get to eat chocolate for breakfast ๐คญ
What A North Pole Breakfast Actually is
The beauty of this is that you can make it pretty much whatever you want it to be.
Some families go all out with sugar dusting footprints on the table (the elves, remember?), Christmas bunting, table decorations, jars of different sweets and piles of sweet breakfast foods, the works. Others basically stick some Christmas music on and have sugar waffles with chocolate sauce and whipped cream.
It’s up to you, but the idea is to create a breakfast that looks like it was made by Santa’s elves.
You know how in Elf the movie, Buddy makes spaghetti with syrup, marshmallows, M and Ms etc? That’s the sort of ball park you’re aiming for, minus the spaghetti and appalling table manners:
There’s no wrong way of doing it though. Just whip up something that feels whimsical and special with sugar as the main ingredient and you’ve got yourself a North Pole Breakfast.
You’ll enjoy it even more if you bought your Christmas presents early like I do!
Breakfast Ideas
Depending on how health conscious you are, there are no shortage of North pole Breakfast ideas out there.
I’ll give you a few, but you are only limited by your imagination really:
- Fruit Platter – Kiwi cut into star shapes, red and green grapes artfully arranged on a Christmas tree plate so it looks like the tree is decorated with red tinsel (I do this every year), fruit kebabs stacked to look like snowmen. You can do all sorts with this.
- Strawberry Snowmen – This is unique to me as far as I know, but I’ll share it with you. Get a big strawberry, chop the stalk bit off to make it flat, then turn it upside down and chop the pointy bit off. Stick a marshmallow in between the two pieces and use some food colouring to create eyes on the marshmallow. Hey presto! Strawberry snowmen ๐โ๏ธ
- Waffles – These are great for a North Pole Breakfast. You can drizzle them in syrup, chocolate sauce, strawberry sauce, toffee sauce – any sweet sauce. Then dust them with powder sugar, scatter some fruit on top, maybe write Merry Christmas in sauce or in the dust on the plate. Go mad.
- Pancakes – Same deal as above. I like making a Santa face on them using cream for the hair and beard, then use sliced strawberries to make a red hat.
- Mini Pastries – A bit more grown up and a bit less sickly but no less delicious. Much less work involved too!
- Hot Chocolate – Whipped cream and marshmallows optional but I mean who says no to them?
- North Pole Milk – It’sย just like a normal glass of milk, but there is a candy cane in it
- Gingerbread Men – A great festive treat, and you can get low sugar ones too. It’s really easy to create little scenarios out of these too. Gingerbread men dancing, gingerbread men decorated with other little sweets, gingerbread men hiding among the table decorations, etc.
I do a bit of table decorating too, since it’s one of the only times the kids will actually sit at the table to eat.
We have a Christmassy table cloth and fake gingerbread house that goes in the middle, and I string some twinkly lights up as well and scatter some festive confetti around. Of course, we also have a Smithy family set of Christmas plates and mugs, so we use them too.
Like I said, we do Elf on the Shelf every year, so our naughty little elf is always lurking around somewhere on North Pole Breakfast day, along with a note for the children to explain why they are here.
It probably sounds like a big effort but it only takes half an hour to set up the night before, and honestly, the kids areย so excited when they come downstairs in the morning. It’s adorable.
An Untraditional Tradition
I love the traditional Christmas stuff, we take the kids to Church for the carols, we decorate the tree together, have advent calendars, we even make our own mince pies. But there’s nothing wrong with these newer, kind of silly traditions either. A North Pole Breakfast is just something else to make the period feel special.
Yes it’s probably yet another Americanism sneaking into British culture, and yes it’s unhealthy, but you know what? It’s also Christmas. It’s one morning of the year, and I like seeing my children smile, so all you Scrooges can go be grumpy about it somewhere else ๐
As for the rest of you, enjoy your calorific breakfast on the 1st of December, and if you come up with anything particularly impressive, let me know so I can steal it for my lot!