How To Make Candy Sleighs for Christmas

Inside: How to Make Candy Sleighs for Christmas using candy bars and candy canes. These make a cute friend, neighbor or coworker gift. But our favorite is to race them!

Have you ever made or been gifted a candy sleigh? One of our favorite Christmas traditions is to make candy sleighs and race them!

If you haven’t made a candy sleigh for Christmas and raced it, you should definitely try it at least once. Who knows it might become a favorite Christmas activity.

Candy Sleighs for Christmas

When I was growing up each Christmas we would have a Christmas party at my grandparent’s house. At the party we would decorate gingerbread houses, and have candy sleigh races along with several other holiday activities.

It’s been several years since I have been able to go to that Christmas party but now we have fun doing this same tradition at home.

These sleighs are a fun activity to do at home or you could make candy cane sleighs and have races as part of a class party. Making these sleighs would even be a fun Christmas activity for a senior center.

Christmas Candy Sleighs

Each year we schedule a night in December to make our Christmas candy sleighs and race them. It’s a fun activity that both kids and adults love.

If you want to try having a candy sleigh race as one of your Christmas activities here is how to make it happen.

Supplies for Your Christmas Candy Cane Sleigh

• Candy bars (you can have a variety to choose from or use the classic Hershey bar)
• Candy canes
• A driver – Chocolate Santa/snowman, Action figure or LEGO minifig
• Other candy for decorating fun
• Tape or Hot Glue (low temp) or Glue Dots
• Optional: Wrapping paper, ribbon, anything else you think would be fun

How To Make Candy Sleighs with a Candy Bar

Over the years how we make our candy sleighs has changed depending on the ages of our kids. The nice thing is that this activity can be changed to work for any age.

Christmas Candy Cane Sleigh Instructions

For a basic sleigh, all you need is a chocolate bar and a couple of candy canes.

Use hot glue or tape to attach the candy canes to your candy bar as sleigh runners. You can attach the candy canes to the bottom or top of the candy bar. (we have mixed opinions on what works best.)

Now you have the basic sleigh, but as my kids would say you’re missing the best part (the decorations and driver).

Decorating the Christmas Candy Sleigh

We like having extra chocolate and candy to decorate our sleighs with. (Left over or clearance Halloween candy works great for this!)

To make the extra candy look like gifts you could use wrapping paper scraps to wrap little chocolate gifts for your Christmas sleigh.

Using extra chocolate and candy just might make your sleigh faster than the competition when you race your candy sleigh.

We like using a mix of hot glue and tape to put our candy bar sleighs together.

The hot glue (low temp) looks better but for young kids requires help from mom and dad and even older kids need supervision.

If you have independent kids that don’t want help tape or glue dots are a kid friendly alternative to hot glue.

Picking a Driver for Your Christmas Sleigh

Don’t forget having a driver for your sleigh is also fun.

For the driver, you could use a chocolate Santa or other candy creature. We have also used Lego minifigures and some of the kids action figures for our sleigh drivers.

Don’t be afraid to get creative with how you make your sleighs, I always love seeing the different ideas my kids have for making their sleighs.

Once you have your sleighs put together and decorated you’re ready to race.

Christmas Candy Sleigh Race

It’s time to race that awesome candy bar sleigh you just made. Don’t worry you might win if you’re lucky, but even if you don’t win you’re sure to have a great time.

For your race track, the easiest thing to use is a folding banquet table. Put up only one end of the table and you have a perfectly sloped race track. (our table is white so it even looks like a snowy track!)

If you don’t have a folding table it’s ok I’m sure you have something that you can use. We have used our kid’s slide, a piece of wood, and even a large flat box as runways for our sleigh races. Simply find something you have at home that will work.

To make sure the sleigh races are fair use a ruler, box, broom handle or another straight-edged item to have the sleighs line up against. Then you can simply move the item and all the sleighs will take off at the same time.

Depending on how many sleighs you have and how big your runway is you may need to race them in different heats.

After everyone had a turn racing the kids wanted to keep racing so they raced their sleighs several more times.

The kids love racing the candy bar sleighs, and even if they aren’t racing they love sending the sleigh down the track (table).

We had so much fun making and racing our sleighs this year we can’t wait to do it again next year.

More Fun Christmas Activities

Don’t Eat Santa {Free Printable Game}
Easy Christmas Paper Plate Crafts for Kids
100 Christmas Activities for Families {Free Printable List}