O Christmas Tree

Christmas season is upon us all. Merrily we go along now friends. When parents and I happened to be in the same country recently (crazy reality that we seldom are in the same time zone), my mom was showing Asher one of the ornaments I made as a tiny tot. She loves this piece of my childhood, probably because as we all get older there are very few of those tangible pieces remaining. This got me to thinking on a way to preserve such trinkets. I am not going to throw myself headlong into 500 pinterest projects for myself and the kids this holiday season, mainly thanks to a reminder I read here.

Rather, I decided we can do the Jesse Tree Advent devotionals, including the little ornaments for each day; and we can occasionally make new ornaments are artsy things in light of the season. With two boys, almost 10 months and 2 1/2 years old, I have a very small window of time to do such things and have it be enjoyable and productive, sadly I often focus on the productive instead of the enjoyable. 

With my mom's love for childhood ornaments and this desire to do something fun and seasonal with Asher mainly, I decided to recreate one of my first ornaments made as a little person, the Christmas tree.  The best part is that most of us have the construction paper already laying around somewhere with glue and string of some sort. I had to run to Michael's for the glitter and admit that we walked around for 30 minutes looking at other things before I remembered why we had gone there to begin with. Thankfully, we left with ONLY the glitter and not many other items in tow as well. 

I started with tracing the original tree onto fresh green construction paper. 

Next I cut both trees out and followed that by cutting out the ornaments for the trees.

I applied the glue to spots Asher wanted to hang his ornaments and away he went(you could place the dots where you like if the littles are too little to tell you where they would like them). 

Then I applied the glue for the glittery lights or garland, whichever you imagine and Asher helped me sprinkle the glitter (no picture due to mommy needing to hold the glitter so the whole kitchen didn't wind up sparkly).

Finally he went to town on the stars and I punched a hole in the top for the string(anything you have laying around is usable here).

Here's the finished products. 1983 vs. 2013, thirty years requires updating. Asher did both trees as Mason was napping and would've eaten the ornaments rather than placing them anywhere near his tree. I hope you feel inspired with this easy activilty. Have a great day!