In today's post I'm sharing the last of our Christmas bento lunches. Things are always madly busy in the rush up to Christmas so I kept them quick and simple, relying heavily on my Yumbox lunch boxes to help keep the food in Small Childs lunches balanced and healthy with minimal effort and thought on my part. Small Child said that some of the children at school were particularly interested in seeing his Christmas themed lunches, so I had to keep them coming, no matter how low in creative inspiration I was getting!
Much as I enjoy making his fun lunches (and I really do!) I was quite relieved when the Christmas holidays arrived at long last and we could all take a well earned break. I've been enjoying my break so much that I forgot to blog about these lunches until now though - better late than never I suppose!
The first lunch I'm sharing was a really simple one which was based on the Christmas colours of red and green. I shared lots of ideas for red and green foods in this post earlier this month - it's a really easy way to make healthy foods festive and fun - simply grab a few foods of each colour and put them together to make a green and red meal or snack!
In this lunch I packed raw red pepper strips and sugar snap peas, topped with a Christmas tree pick, a pile of cheese crackers, topped with a snowflake decoration from this cutter set, roast chicken slices, rolled and skewered on alphabet picks spelling out XMAS, red and green grapes, skewered on long food picks to make mini fruit kebabs, organic strawberry yoghurt topped with red and green Christmas tree sprinkles, and some dried cranberries, which I topped with a few snowflake sprinkles.
I was really pleased with how this second lunch turned out - I found that I had made a Christmas tree almost by accident, so I went with that for the rest of the lunch theme! To make the edible Christmas tree, I spread a tortilla wrap with a little mayo, then topped with it roast chicken slices, shredded lettuce and finely sliced strips of raw red pepper. I rolled up the wrap and sliced it into 6 even pieces before arranging them in the large compartment of our Yumbox Panino in a rough triangle shape. I cut a star from a slice of carrot using a mini bento cutter and popped it onto the top slice to complete the Christmas tree.
On the side I packed melon slices, cut into baubles using a plunger cutter (from this set), pomegranate seeds (Small Child absolutely loves pomegranate, especially if he gets to remove the seeds from the fruit himself - he spent a happy 10 minutes 'harvesting' these ones for his lunch!), organic yoghurt topped with more green and red Christmas tree sprinkles and some more dried cranberries, to which I added a little treat of a few green chocolate smarties.
In the third lunch I made use of some leftover chipolata sausages from dinner the night before - they had cranberries in them so were suitably festive! I also served up plain crackers, decorated with snowman faces (using red and black edible marker pens), some pâté to spread on the crackers, strips of raw yellow pepper and carrot topped with a snowman cupcake ring, and for dessert, half a kiwi fruit cut with a star pattern (to see how I did this see my quick tutorial here), a few raspberries with blueberries inside and some natural yoghurt, topped with red and green sprinkles. I finished off the festive theme with a Christmas tree cupcake pick which I used to decorate the sausages. I also packed a blunt plastic butter knife for Small Child to use for spreading the pâté (not shown).
I gave the Yumboxes a break for this star themed lunch and used my TUMTUM Lunch Set instead. In this lunch I packed ham sandwiches, cut into stars and with a star cut from the top sandwich to decorate it (I used nesting star cutters to get this effect), raw carrot and cucumber sticks and a star shaped silicone cup full of star shaped kiwi slices. In the central container I packed mixed raisins, sunflower and pumpkin seeds, and I threw in a few star shaped pretzels to fill in the gaps around the sandwiches. I also packed one of our Nom-Nom Kids reusable pouches which I filled with organic blueberry yoghurt (not shown).
The next lunch (packed in our green Yumbox Classic) was a real assortment of random foods, as I was in serious need of food shopping! When I have a day like that I am extremely grateful that I discovered bento lunches, they are so perfect for packing bits and pieces! In this lunch I packed a hard boiled egg (which I shaped into a panda using my CuteZCute Animal Palz kit and topped with a party hat pick), some star shaped pretzels, an organix carrot oaty bar (under the cheese) and a mini Babybel cheese, which I decorated by cutting a Christmas tree from the wax using a mini cutter. I also packed a few raw sugar snap peas, carrot stars, red and green grapes and some raspberries, which I topped with a Santa cupcake ring. I finished the lunch off by popping a few raisins in the dip well, and added red and green silicone cups to hold some of the looser foods in place.
Finally for the last day of term I packed a Christmas tree sandwich. We had just decorated our tree the night before and Small Child was very excited about it! This sandwich was really easy to make - I simply cut two sides off an ordinary rectangle shaped sandwich to make a triangle (a passing Small Child ate the leftovers as I made it!) and decorated it with polka dot picks for the lights, adding a star cut from raw carrot to finish it. On the side he had raw yellow pepper and carrot sticks, topped with a Santa cupcake ring, clementine segments, blueberries and raisins. I finished it off with a festive Babybel cheese and added a snow globe pick and sweetie pick to decorate.
That's it from me on the subject of Christmas - until next year!
Grace
Shannon says
Grace, I just LOVE that Christmas tree sandwich with the pick "lights". It's bloody brilliant. Thanks for sharing some ideas for next year!
Grace says
Thanks so much Shannon, it was a last minute idea that turned out well 🙂