Nature Ornaments

It should be no surprise how quickly the holidays go commercial for our little friends. They are urged on by casual chatter about gifts, reminders that they "better watch out" (for some, enhanced by a squealing elf or mensch on bench), and the endless stream of toy catalogs we move from mailbox to recycling bin. Nevertheless, it was much to our chagrin that our three year old became hyper focused on wanting this and needing that for Christmas. Even though Brian still recalls the thrill of opening his drum set, and I that rush from discovering my Cabbage Patch dolls, we want the holidays to mean more to our kids than just getting stuff.

Pondering how to shift the focus away from acquiring treasure and put some soul back in the holidays, we started recalling our favorite non-present-related holiday memories from childhood. We remembered going outside at night to look at lights, my neighborhood's annual caroling walk, and a whole lot of making—from snow creatures to cookies to decorations for the house.

So, we decided to test out some of this making with our girls, starting first with decking our halls with treasures from nature. Fortunately, the right decorations fell into our laps (more like, on our heads). Trees like the Sycamore and Sweetgum are dropping their fruits all over our local park. So, we spent nearly an hour hunting for these fabulous formations, filling several bindles with them. We later sorted, counted and selected the pointiest, most fetching fruits. We painted them red, green and blue, then we added them to our Christmas tree a few days later. Low and behold, they have become the most chatted-about ornaments on the tree. We realize there are more elaborate crafts to be done with these objects (and please do feel free to take this up several notches), but for our group, the simplicity of this activity really worked—and the result was still stunning.