Our Homemade Christmas

Being away from home for Christmas has had its ups and downs but one thing I liked about this year is that we made all of our own decorations.

I copied an idea from a friend of mine that did an advent activity calendar with her kids this year. Thanks Claire! Instead of the 24 days, we just did 12. 24 seemed too much with Nutcracker practices and exams. For probably 6 of the 12 days we made some kind of Christmas decoration. We made Christmas ornaments for our itsy, bitsy tree, a wreath, stockings and a gingerbread house (from scratch).

For ornaments, we did cardboard gingerbread men, foam and wite-out candy canes (Riley's idea), foam Christmas lights, shrinky-dinks, and a popsicle stick star (also Riley's). A couple of my favorites are Amelia's Marge Simpson gingerbread lady and Jane's shrinky-dink manger scene.

The wreath I had started at Relief Society. It's made out of crepe paper.

We made stockings out of felt and Jocie joined us for that one.

The kids said they liked the gingerbread house the best but I thought it was an aweful failure. I've never made the house out of actual gingerbread. Usually graham crackers, but they are not available. I had a recipe for the house, but I think I didn't cook it long enough. It just crumbled under the pressure of dozens of m&ms. I even tried to prop it up with a cake mix and juice boxes to no avail.