This is a great time of year for creating wreaths with those wreath shells you can get, made of twisted grapevine.

We go out and collect yellow and red leaves, along with bunches of winter berries, pinecones, twigs of pine needles, etc. Anything that looks fun. Seeds & nuts.

Sometimes I'll get small ornaments, Christmas ribbon, that sort of thing, and we'll it really Christmassy.

We get a huge pile, then sort it out on the kitchen table. We have one large family wreath that the kids help me create, and each child has his or her own smaller wreath.

They go up all over the house. They're so much fun, and every time we look at them, they remind us of the wonderful day we had making them.

After Christmas, we take it apart. You can keep decorating it year-round, depending on the season or holiday.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Of course paper ornament chains is a good standby. It's new to the kids, even though it may not seem new to us. For variations, the kids can paste fabric to the paper, add glitter, sequins, or color designs on them with markers.

Oriental Trading has really cute, easy-to-make, inexpensive ornament kits. We generally get several kits and make them during a few "ornament-making" sessions. We then give them out to relatives. Some of them include a place for the kids' photos.

Oriental Trading Home Page

I just get so excited about the holidays!

Christmas Carols Lyrics

A simple, fun Christmas activity is painting ornaments. We get cute, unpainted plaster ornaments from the fabric or crafts store. I find Joanne Fabrics always has really great sales on these kinds of items. The kids love painting them. It's simple, and kids of all ages can do this. Then I have some really great keepsakes, and the kids have contributed to the Christmas tree.

Even the angels that are painted all brown, or the Santas that are all green with yellow splotches are great, because they remind me of my kids when they're really little, and everything they make is special.

You can find these for as little as 30 cents a piece - so it's a really inexpensive project.