ChristmasTipsOnline.Com

Christmas is about love, sharing and goodwill. The Christmas season excites our senses; the shops abound with Christmas cheer and a continuous hum of Christmas carols. Christmas is a time for re-creating memories and adding new ones. The best way to add to these memories – is to surround ourselves with things that remind us of the season. Decorating is an easy way to accomplish this. Set time aside to plan your decoration activities to fill your house with the holiday spirit.

Plan a tree decorating party.

Firstly, you will have to decide if you are going to use a live tree or an artificial one. Live trees are popular – reserve one well in advance to make sure that you are not disappointed.

Now plan the tree decorating party. Set the tree up in a spacious spot – where there is place for everyone to gather around the tree and there is space to put the gifts under the tree. Cover the container that holds the tree with green paper. Purposely leave your tree naked, and invite your friends, family and especially the children to dress it up for you.

Make a list of what you need to decorate the tree:

• Ornaments
• Tinsel
• Glowing strings of lights
• Art materials to make ornaments
  • Card board
  • Glue sticks
  • Glitter
  • Magic markers
  • Yarn
  • Cotton balls
  • Popcorn to pop (Try to get colored microwave pop corn)
  • Construction paper
  • Large needles with a large eye
• Bake gingerbread men, stars and hearts
• Cookie icing and sweets
• Prepare stencils of hearts, stars, snowflakes and snowmen

On the day:

Lay out your collection of ornaments and lights, as well as art materials.

Gather the older children and let them pop the corn. Pop enough corn to make pop corn strings and for eating. Eating pop corn while decorating adds some fun.

Ask for volunteers to make pop corn strings by threading pop corn onto long sections of yarn.

Instruct the younger children how to make star, heart, snowflake and snowmen decorations. Demonstrate the use of a stencil. Cut out the different shapes. Cover the shapes with shiny paper or paint and decorate them with glitter and magic markers. Everything goes — even the hideous ones will be funny. Write the names of all the guests on a heart or star decoration.

Make a few bowls with cake icing, each a different color. Put the different sweets into small bowls. Gather the youngsters in the kitchen and have a gingerbread man decorating demonstration. Leave the rest to them to decorate.

Once all the decorations have been made gather everyone around the tree and decorate. Don’t forget to put the fairy on top!

Lastly, switch on the tree lights.

Now your tree is ready for gifts to be placed underneath.