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Five Christmas decorations ideas you can make with your kids
Two years ago, on dark and stormy late April evening, a hole appeared in our roof.
Why, dear reader am I bringing this up on a Christmas-themed blog? Because this particular hole appeared right above two boxes of Christmas decorations. One was filled with sparkly tat accumulated from years of early December runs to Wilkinson’s. The other, above a box of decorations made by my Sister and me when I was 6. A sparkly cone with wings and the sort of terrifying demented face that can only be created by a 4-year-old girl had adorned the top of our tree for 22 years. Its horrifying gaze was as much a part of Christmas for us as minced pies and burnt Yorkshire pudding, and we genuinely mourned its loss.
So, without further ado, I humbly present a guide to creating brilliant Christmas decorations with your kids that will be both cherished and will scare away burglars for years to come.
1) There’s a Christmas tree on your Christmas tree.
Take some cardboard. Take something Christmas tree shaped, (in our case, It was a shape for cutting biscuits.) Take a pricstick, and some glitter. Combine. Stick a hole in the top, tie some string in there. Break up the inevitable glitter throwing fight. Success.
2) Paper chain!
Your kids will fight doing this, for the first ten minutes. It is, after all, not as immediately exciting as, say, beheading terrorists on the Xbox. Then, when you’ve half-bullied them, sweatshop style, into creating a 3 meter long paperchain, their little hearts will swell with pride and they’ll start tying bits of paper into a chain for hours on end until they come up with something that is far too long to fit into any room constructed by mere mortals. Keep any important documentation out of reach.
3) Arial The Little Mermaid Fairy
There was a period in the Early 90’s when the Little Mermaid was cool. Then it was not. And that left a free Little Mermaid doll. 2 winged shaped bits of card and a metric ton of glitter later, we had a beautiful half fish-half fairy to sit atop our grandparents tree, trying to lure the other decorations to a watery grave with its irresistible sirens call. Tell your daughter that you’re going to teach her how to turn her toys together into ‘magical Christmas fairy’s’ and she will try and donate everything she owns. This same strategy works when getting your kids to recycle, for the record. My niece genuinely believes that somewhere in the world is a magical fairy born of a Tango can.
4) Gingerbread men
Torturing your kids by hanging sweets and cakes in their eye view for weeks and not letting them eat any of it is part and parcel of what Christmas is all about, darn it. Decorating Christmassy gingerbread men with icing with your kids is what’s known in Northern parts as a ‘rite laff’. As is figuring out the resulting mystery of ‘who ate the legs off all the Gingerbread men’ 3 days later. (Pro-tip; It was probably the Dad)
5) Little Santa Hats
I don’t know why we made so many of these as kids ? Our Christmas tree looked like a collection of trophies from a hunt of a thousand elves. Simply put – Take red card, wrap into a cone, glue together, stick some string on, stick a bit of cotton wool on top, voila!
There you go. 5 ways to make decorations that your kids will love, and will leaving you finding bits of glitter around your house for years to come.
Bio; Michael Curtis currently works for Hallmark Cards in the Christmas department where he basically gets to do the above with industrial-grade equipment. Its ace.
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