Christmas this year is going to be shortchanged. Not only personally, but because, sadly, while they’ll still be doing posts at their site, Divine Magazine’s 12 Days Of Christmas Blog Hop has had to be cancelled. Christmas, however, is not! And I’m going to post my Divine post anyway. So there.
We moved into our new house at the beginning of the month, and I doubt I can even *find* the Christmas trees right now (we have two – somewhere), not to mention the decorations and what not. I really don’t think I’ll be able to find the what not. I may be able to disentangle it all from the heap of unpacked boxes by the time Christmas Eve comes around, but this first Christmas in our lovely new house is going to be patchy, to say the least.
The thing I’ll be trying hard to find time for will be my favourite Christmassy crafts: making snow lanterns or cinnamon candles, or hanging the windows with a mass of vintage glass baubles. It’ll be a challenge. But rise to the challenges we must. So here are a few of my favourite crafts for you to have fun with this holiday time.
Cinnamon Candles
Tie cinnamon sticks around fat church candles with string or raffia. As you burn the candles, they‘ll make the house smell wonderful. They make pretty good presents, too.
Free downloadable sheet music
Sheet music of carols to use in your Christmas crafts. Why not print them and use them as wrapping paper for small gifts?
Hanging baubles in the window
Hang a collection of vintage baubles in your window, using pretty ribbons. Massing them like this gives a great effect. I hang mine from a tension rod.
Vintage Chandelier
Even more fun, make a Christmas chandelier. Wrap a circular ring – a florist‘s ring would work – with ribbons and then go mad hanging it with baubles, strings of beads and pearls etc and hang it over your table. Be careful with those candles though!
For a more natural look…
Hang a collection of pine cones and bundles of cinnamon sticks in your window on ribbons, and frame them with a pine garland.
Or create snowlights with old jars, pine cones, tealights, a bit of raffia and artificial snow. So easy!
HAVE FUN!
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That’s an aim worthy of support all year round, not just for Christmas. Visit their site and enjoy it.
Happy hols, everyone!
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Anna Butler 
Oh that does suck, Anna! But in your enormous, new, beautiful house, you can also make Russian tea. That’s one of my favorite family traditions. I don’t have a *set* recipe, but the ingredients are: strong black tea (I prefer PG Tips these days, meself), orange juice, lemon juice, pineapple juice, cinnamon (preferably sticks, just for the look of it), ground cloves, ground ginger, either ground or whole allspice, nutmeg, sugar (yes, even with all those juices, it still needs just a bit of sugar). For a typical batch, I start with a dozen bags of tea, brew it strong, then, while the water is coming to a boil for that, I measure out about two tablespoons of each spice onto either a piece of cheesecloth or a coffee filter. Tie that with either string, or a piece cut off the coffee filter, or a piece of cheesecloth. Let the spices steep along with the tea, for a little longer than the tea, actually; I like my spice flavor good & strong. After removing the tea bags & spices, add the juices in, to taste. You’ll want to use more OJ, with pineapple being the second, and the lemon juice being the least. Stir in a bit of sugar & taste. Add more juices, depending on your taste buds. I generally experiment with it to get just the right flavor. Serve with a stick of cinnamon in each mug.
When I was a kid, we would make a huge pot of this, and leave it simmering on the stove on low, and whenever anybody wanted some, we’d just go ladle it out. With just the four of us, it would last us for several days, and during that time, the whole house would smell divine from the citrus & spices.
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Oh my, that sounds wonderful. Thank you, Val! I’ve got the family coming up here the week after Christmas for Mum’s 84th, so I think we’ll give it a try to have something warming when we’re back from walking the dogs.
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