Wonderball - a cross between Christmas crackers and Pass the Parcel !

As we'll be away visiting family over Christmas, we've already started discovering the contents of our Christmas hamper and one of the items had us puzzled. We had no idea what a Wonderball was !

Luckily there's a sticker on there telling you what to do. "Begin unwinding here."

No sooner said than done !

All three of the Madhouse Mini-testers were intrigued and kept on unwinding it then passing it on.

Sophie found the first surprise - a little plastic comb - and also moved on to a new colour.

I ended up putting on a Christmas CD and stopping it every now and then so that they could pass it on, just like Pass the Parcel.

I love the way that this appealed to all three of them, despite the wide age range (4, 8 and 12).

There are 90m of crepe paper in total so, although I started off with good intentions and started rewinding them up into a roll to be reused in crafting activities, I soon gave up and told them to put it straight into a plastic bag instead !

Here's their haul and it's pretty much what you would expect to get in a box of crackers - a few plastic spinning tops, a big paperclip, a ring, a couple of plastic charms, a mystery calculator and a pencil sharpener (which was all rusty !).

The novelty value is definitely what won over the Madhouse Mini-testers because they had no idea what to expect. We said that this would be a great idea to make ourselves, wrapping up little gifts or fun size chocolate bars in crepe paper.

If you want to buy one ready-made, I've been looking online and you'll need to google "Whimsical Wonderball" - they retail for about £9.

Other blogposts you may be interested in :

Festive fun at the Christmas markets

Make Christmas Magic with PNP (Portable North Pole) !

Simple Christmas Crafts to do with the kids this weekend