Henry carefully drizzles glue around a pine cone found at Woodman Park.
I still remember the holiday crafts of my childhood: clothes pin reindeer with googly eyes and fuzzy red noses, long chains of red and green construction paper glued together with care and hung around doorways, and tiny wreath ornaments that captured the twinkle of tree lights inside glassy-green beads threaded on red pipe cleaner. More than the crafts themselves, though, I remember the moments creating them. I remember whose hands guided mine when I needed help, and whose eyes I met across the table to share a laugh over a bowl of spilled beads or an accidental one-eyed Rudolph.
Now that I’m a mom, I live for the opportunities to create things with my son Henry, 5, and my daughter Sadie, 2, and I hope to give them the same warm holiday memories I was blessed with. Of course, our craft shelf is fat and unsteady from the weight of ten kinds of paper, five varieties of paint, and endless bottles of glue, plus bowl upon bowl of buttons, feathers, markers and more; we have bags of cotton balls (just right for snowmen) sitting alongside red and white pipe cleaners (that would make perfect candy canes). Still, this holiday season I had an idea to help extend the whole process, to make those precious moments last longer than 45 minutes (or less with a two-year-old). This year, I decided, our homemade holiday decorations would come from nature. We’d have to scavenge and plan, tinker and toy. There would be no foam Santa faces to piece together according to the picture on the package. No color-by-number Christmas trees. But I knew we could do it and that it would be wonderful.
Over the past few months we’ve been making a point of getting outside almost every day and enjoying some unstructured time among the elements, which has actually left us with a healthy collection of twigs, rocks—even moss. But for our holiday crafts, we had some specific items in mind like pine cones and evergreen sprigs. So we visited our favorite haunts, from the trails at Maudslay State Park where we found elegant thin sticks and pocketfuls of acorns, to the hidden corners of Woodman Park where we loaded bags with perfectly plump, white-tipped pine cones. Our holly and boxwood sprigs came straight from our own backyard. It was easy to collect fallen evergreen branches after some of the recent wind storms, too. After that first busy and fun week of gathering our goods we were ready to spend the month of December crafting up our own storm—the first project of which we wanted to share with you.
I let Henry choose. We could make reindeer out of pine cones, I told him, or dip them in paint and tie them together to create a swag for the front door—or glue them into a wreath. We could string strands of garland from all we’d collected and add in some fresh cranberries or popped corn. The ideas were endless. He eventually opted to create a pine cone centerpiece for our dining room table. And he had his sights set on something else: glitter. Glitter and glue. That fabulous pair known among the short set as the best twosome since peanut butter and jelly. Sigh. We fished out the shakers of red and gold glitter and three bottles of glue, and got to work.
Sadie inspects her work.
Henry talked Sadie through every step of the craft like a proud big brother and seasoned crafter (he is almost halfway through kindergarten, after all). Both children easily managed to drizzle the glue up and down the pine cones, and shake on the glitter. Some of us (read: Sadie) shook the glitter on other things, like, well, everything. Okay, it felt like it was raining glitter at one point. Still, we played holiday music and danced, and drizzled and shook some more. By the end, glitter coated our fingers and dusted our clothing and hair. When we looked at the row of bedazzled pine cones sparkling on the table, though, we were pleased with our work. After they finally dried—and as Sadie napped with specks of red glitter still stuck to her chubby cheeks—Henry and I placed the pine cones carefully in a trifle bowl. Then, we cut and arranged some of our evergreens and holly at the base of the bowl. The end product was as lovely as we had hoped it would be. Honestly, it turned out pretty sophisticated (not that I don’t love a good clothes pin Rudolph). Henry and I looked at each other from across the table watching the light from the chandelier dance in the glittering bowl, and we smiled. We had done some great work—and made a quality memory at that.
We’re certainly not the only ones to incorporate nature into holiday decorating. There are numerous resources for ideas, and one idea hot spot is located right on Plum Island Turnpike. The Joppa Flats Education Center regularly hosts nature-related events for children through their Family Flyby program, and last weekend they hosted “Deck the Halls with Nature,” where children ages 2 to 12 visited three crafting areas and made some of their very own holiday decorations: coastal decorations using sand, rocks, and sea shells; backyard decorations using twigs, branches, pine cones, stones and moss; and some treats for wildlife using bird seed, pine cones, old bread, popcorn, cranberries and cereal to create fruit wreaths, popcorn strands, and bird feeders.
Long walks, glitter and lots of laughs resulted in a festive and sophisticated centerpiece, naturally.
On December 17, the center will be hosting another holiday program called “Nature Toy Workshop,” that, according to teacher and naturalist Elyssa Davis, will focus on creating toy instruments like pianos and guitars out of recyclables or maracas out of clam shells. Children can also make mineral collection kits, origami, tic-tac-toe boards, beachcomber mobiles and more.
“Free-flow learning at the center is fun for the whole family,” Davis said. “There’s always simple science fun with coloring pages, crafts, and toys for ages 2 to 6; science experiments and group challenges for ages 7 and up; and outdoor exploration, seasonal live animals, and scheduled family presentations for everyone.” Member families pay $4.00 per child, and non-members pay $7.00 per child. Adults are always free to the Flyby. To find out more about upcoming programs, visit the center online.
We’ll be there, of course … just as soon as we get the glitter out of our hair. In the meantime, go for a walk and find some pine cones. I hear they are still plentiful at Atkinson Common.
Alyson Aiello is a freelance writer, mother and nature lover. Send ideas her way at alysonaiello@hotmail.com.
