Making Christmas decorations with toddlers

Lily is super excited about Christmas. Every time she sees a Christmas tree or some form of Christmas decoration, she screams out "Chrimas!", and runs over to take a closer look. I'm not sure where this excitement has come from, but I've decided to work with it.

Over the past week we've been making a series of Christmas decorations for our own humble tree.

It's been lots of fun!

So what exactly have we been making?
Well it all started with snowflakes, which I discovered I have no idea how to make. Luckily Paul came to the rescue, folding and snipping paper and doing mysterious things I still don't understand, but which resulted in lovely floaty snowflakes. As Lily doesn't really use scissors yet, her main job was to put them on the tree.

Next we baked star-shaped shortbread cookies (recipe from Anyone can Bake), read the Bible story of the wise men following a star to Jesus, and decorated a felt-star with beads. After a mysterious explosion in my craft box, we don't have any craft glue, so I'm sewing the beads to the star. I don't think it will be finished this Christmas.

Lily's job was to help me choose which beads to decorate the star with, and then to tip them from container to container. (Well, she made that last part up - but it seemed to amuse her.)

Next we went to the local library and made a pohutukawa flower as part of an activity run there. (Afterward she pretended it was a microphone and sung a performance at the local cafe with her friend Sebby.)

Lastly we decorated some clothes tags with stickers, which was the best activity for Lily as she was actually able to fully participate. I cut two of the tags into leaf-shapes and left the others as rectangles. 

To make them, Lily stuck stickers on the side with writing, and drew pictures on the blank side. 

So there you have it, a few simple Christmas decorating activities that have been lots of fun for Lily and I.