Indoor Camping

My son has been talking about camping for weeks on end and I figured the only way to satisfy him would be to go camping! However, since we live in a state that is ridiculously cold and snowy for half of the year, having an actual camp out was out of the question. Hence, indoor camping!

First, it's not really considered camping if you don't have a campfire. Our carpet-safe campfire was made out of cutouts of each of our hands.After cutting the hand prints out I taped them all together and formed a small circle with the adult hands, and a larger circle with the kid hands. We never even knew it wasn't a real fire!
Once we had our fire built, it was time for the camping snacks. I had gotten a wide variety of trail mix ingredients so that we could each make our own individual trail mix. Delicious! Then, while we were sitting in our tent (aka - the blanket thrown over three dining room chairs) enjoying our snack, we took turns telling stories.Once we finished with the trail mix and story-telling it was time to roast some marshmallows. Using a tea light worked fine since our son doesn't like to eat them when they're really roasted, he just likes the idea of it. We've also roasted marshmallows in the toaster oven by just leaving the door open and that worked great (and didn't leave a black residue on the marshmallows!).