Christmas Decorations and Crafts: Enjoying the Old Standards

It’s the week after November. For many families that’s when the transition from fall and Thanksgiving to winter and Christmas take place. Why look for new and exciting Christmas crafts, when the ones we grew up doing can be just as enjoyable today and can become part of the traditions that the family looks forward to on a yearly basis.

1. Outdoor Christmas Trees. Kids will love making an edible tree for the birds. Pop some popcorn and open a bag of cranberries to string up and hang around the tree. Slice a couple of oranges and poke a clove in the center for ornaments. Slather peanut butter on pine cones and roll around in bird seed to hang as well.

2. Sugar cookies. I’ve never really enjoyed the taste of sugar cookies, but I always loved making them at my grandmother’s. We would use her Christmas cookie cutters and by the time they had baked and cooled down, she had colored icings and various decorating supplies out and ready for our use. Here’s an easy recipe if you are looking for one.

3. Ornaments. The Cookie cutters you used to make sugar cookies can also be used for creating ornaments. Use this recipe for the dough and you’ll have ornaments to paint and hang before you know it (don’t forget to make a hole in the dough before you dry it out.) You can also soak construction paper for 5 minutes in warm water, blend and, after squeezing out excess water, pack into cookie cutter forms. Place on a towel to get more water out  (watch out, colors bleed) and then place in the oven at about 200 degrees Celsius, until dry. Glue ribbon on back of ornament

4. Berry Gathering As a child, we went out in the surrounding woods to find a Christmas tree to cut down and decorate. Now that I have a family of my own, we don’t do that anymore, but we do go and gather juniper berries, nandina berries and pine branches to decorate windows and tables. My daughter loves to grab her nature treasure basket and look for the reds, blues and greens that keep nature colorful even during the colder months. Remind your little ones that not all berries are for eating. Some are just for looking at. Google any berries you find to see if they are poisonous

5. Paper Crafts.  How can snowflakes ever go out of style when the possibilities are endless? Instead of using the usual white paper, try heavy duty Christmas wrapping paper as an alternative. And don’t forget the linked construction paper. I'm not saying that this is the most aesthetically pleasing craft out there, but I am saying that cutting strips of green and red construction paper and giving them to your child with some tape will keep them happily involved for a good bit of time.

Of course, there are 100’s of great ideas for Christmas crafts and decorations out there, and I am likely to try one or two of them this season. However, I think interweaving those new ideas with these old ones will help create a tradition that your loved ones will look forward to year after year.

Hammocks are Great for Bird Watching

Every year my mom and grandmother get about 20 free calendars in the mail that they could not possibly have enough empty wall space for. Therefore, around November, they bring out the pile and allow us and the grand-kids to choose our favorites. Some are used for various craft projects, but for the last couple of years, I have chosen one as a teaching tool for Sarah. The first calendar we hung up identified various flower species. It surprised me how well my 3-year-old daughter learned the names each month. She was even able to find examples of flowers in gardens around the area. After a year, she has forgotten many of the flowers, but whenever she sees purple clematis or a bleeding heart, she is sure to point them out to me.

This year, we got a calendar on birds. We regularly take the calendar off the wall and review each month’s pinup during breakfast. I almost always get a request to “just have a little peak” at next month’s picture. I decided to take identifying to the next level when I found and downloaded a free iPhone application called Scotts Bird Id. The program, once you choose a state, will generate a list of birds that can be found in that state. For many types, there are also sounds of the bird calls available for your listening pleasure. Once you have seen a bird and heard its call, you can then record a sighting which will be added to a migration chart that is being maintained by Scotts. This can be viewed from their Facebook page.

We headed outside to see what birds we could find. It was then that I spotted the perfect spot to observe-our hammock. Hammocks are great for bird watching. Hanging between two trees – known locations for winged animals – and within viewing distance of one of our bird feeders, it seemed the perfect observation point. An added bonus was the rocking motion that kept Sarah calm and quiet and  put Jabel to sleep within minutes. When we first adjusted ourselves, we couldn’t see or hear one bird. I gave Sarah the iPhone and allowed her to listen to songs of the birds that she had learned from the calendar. I don’t know if it was coincidence, or if the birds could hear calls, but as soon as she played the American Robin song, we saw two American Robins fly overhead. We were also able to hear Blue Jays calling to each other after listening to their song. Sarah was most excited when a number of Tufted Titmouse appeared following another iPhone recording and began eating from the bird feeder.

We spent about an hour, swaying slightly with the same autumn breeze that had colored leaves floating down around us and watching birds flitting to and fro. For those of you who hang around 4 year-old kids, you have an idea what a miracle that is. Sarah didn’t even want to go inside when I suggested it was getting too cool for the little one.

The temperatures are probably soon to dip into regions that will keep us from swinging between the trees, but we already have next year’s calendar picked out and I think the hammock will be great for butterfly watching!