AVIES HOME MADE CHRISTMAS

TREES AND TRIMMINGS


I have already made some suggestions for decorations ,edible and otherwise,the tree itself can often pose problems. When my son was at the toddler stage, a time when nothing was safe from his curiosity,I was also blessed with a number of cats several of which were kitten’s. Envisioning constantly having to extricate either my son of one of the kittens from the tree focused my mind and I decided to do away with the traditional sort of tree for the duration and instead found a curved branch of sycamore and suspended it from the ceiling in a corner of the living room.

On to this branch went the lights, the tinsel and the baubles collected over the years. It turned the room into a magical fairy grotto and was so admired by our family and friends that even those without either toddlers or kittens adopted the same approach on subsequent years and we continued to do so long after the necessity was gone.

If you have a small room with no space for a tree how about making a paper or card board tree to stick on the wall. This looks lovely if you also make cut out decorations to BlueTac on to the tree.

Stars and hearts are in vogue at the moment but if you like you could make cut out birds,angels Santas, Christmas baubles, anything that takes your fancy and the children will love helping to make and attach these decorations.

A walk in the countryside or a park may furnish you with fir cones, twigs and so on all of which can be used to decorate cheaply and effectively. A friend of ours who had several small children was dreading Christmas as her husband had been made redundant and the firm she worked for and gone out of business. They could not afford a tree so she and her husband collected a small pile of short logs,some fir comes and some holly into which they planted a small twiggy branch. She then made some small animals and birds from scraps of cloth and wool which they placed on and around the

log pile,all that was needed then was a little fake snow and a small animal winter wonderland was created for the children who adored it.

A fairy grotto could be made by fixing small doors on to the logs and adding the odd fairy of elf to the scene.

I once made a fairytale Christmas castle from an old cardboard box,some silver spray, toilet roll middle turrets topped with cardboard cones and lit from inside by a set of old Christmas lights placed in the widows and arrow slits,so you see,,it does not have to be a tree.

A focal point, somewhere to place the gifts and more important than all something which the whole family helped to create makes Christmas even more special and exciting to little ones and parents alike. My Grandmother once knitted me a whole family of mice from a white whiskered old Grandfather to a tiny baby mouse mouse wrapped in a shawl. These graced our tree that year and when the decorations were taken down I was given the mouse family to play with, it made my Christmas.

I suppose what I am trying to say is that lots of money does not always make for a happy Christmas, being together, having fun and making the magic between you does.