Ornament Traditions

I love traditions: making new and keeping the old. One of our favorite traditions is the pickle ornament. We have this little glass pickle that is the 'piece de la resistance' when decorating the tree. The kids are giddy about bringing out the pickle, because it means a whole season of hide and seek. Why a pickle? It is an old German tradition. Not sure why a pickle, rather than a carrot or an onion. But we like it.

We hide the pickle in various places around the house and the kids try to find it. It starts on the tree and eventually ends up on the tree by Christmas Eve.

Another ornament tradition we have is making our own. Behind my hand in the picture above, you can see the beaded candycane we made a few years ago. Simple and easy for my little crafters. Sliding beads on a pipe cleaner turned out to be lots of fun.
This year we did something a little more involved, since the kids are getting old enough to enjoy it. This was a two-night craft. We created the salt-dough ornaments. They had so much fun mixing, rolling it out and using the cookie cutters. We also made some 3-D snowmen and candycanes. The second evening of fun was painting them. Above is one of the stars. Imagine that, red and white!
Last year we made these candy canes (do you see a pattern here?!) This was SUPER easy. Red and white pipe cleaners. Twist and bend...that's it!

They make great ornaments and present toppers.