Every Christmas Eve we leave a plate out for Father Christmas. There’s a mince pie and a little tot of brandy and a carrot for Rudolph. But what about the other reindeer? Well, we sprinkle some magic reindeer food outside for them too.

In previous years we’ve sprinkled a mixture of oats and glitter, or bought packets of ready-made magic reindeer food in a plastic wrapper. But these days we are a bit more aware of single use plastics and that glitter gets everywhere and isn’t that great for the environment either. With that in mind, this year we’ve made our own wildlife friendly mix of magic reindeer food and we’ve got a cute recyclable envelope you can print out and share with friends and neighbours.

To make the envelopes, just download the free printable. Cut along the lines on the outside, fold the two side flaps into the centre and glue them together. Fold the bottom flap up and glue that into place. Put your envelope under a book or something which will keep it flat while the glue dries.

Download your free envelope template here.

Once the glue has dried, you can start filling each one with the wildlife friendly magic reindeer food mix. For each envelope you will need…

Wildlife friendly magic reindeer food mix

2 teaspoons of oats
2 teaspoons of wild bird seed
1 teaspoon of dried cranberries

We had a little bowl filled with each of the ingredients and using a teaspoon, we put the right amount of reindeer food in each one. To close the envelope, we used a dab of the glue, if you want to stick it down quickly, you could use a small sticker. We chose to use dried cranberries, partly because they are pretty and jewel like, and partly because we have a dog. Grapes, raisins, sultanas and currants can be poisonous for dogs.

The really great thing about these envelopes is, once you’ve used them, they can just be put in the recycling. There’s no waste, the reindeer food will be gratefully snaffled up by the local wildlife; and there’s no pesky single use plastic to worry about either. It’s an all-round winner!

If you enjoyed this, you might also like this Free Nice List Printable.