My family and I just moved to the US from Hong Kong at the end of last year. In fact it was 3 days after Christmas that our movers came and we said goodbye to our home of almost 10 years. We spent Christmas with our then 2 year old daughter among boxes, sitting on the floor instead of a sofa and making coffee every morning by boiling water with our camp stove. We had very few presents and very little waste and over consumption, but it was certainly memorable and is a sweet memory for us.
This year we are going to try to do the same but this time in the midst of US holiday shopping madness. We must admit to splurging a little over the Black Friday weekend, but that was mostly on things we needed for our new home and were unavoidable (mostly...).
Given we have no Christmas decorations, I decided that I would enjoy crafting our Christmas with Zoe, our now 3 year old daughter, and my mother, who moved with my father from the sunny desert of Arizona to support us in our new home in rainy Seattle.
My first project was completed last week with Zoe on a seriously rainy day that left most Seattle basements very wet. We huddled up inside and made a colorful holiday wreath out of old sweaters. We are both pretty proud of the final result. Its colorful and celebrates spending time together and the love of the season. I am also proud of my daughter who most of the time can barely sit still (and if she does normally something is still twitching) for sticking with it for hours until the final product was complete.
Here's what we did:
Step 1. Procure some old sweaters from your closet that you no longer wear, from friends or from the Goodwill or Salvation Army. I had a few that had shrunk in the wash and we bought another from the Goodwill because I wanted one more color.
Step 2. Cut the sweater into 2in x 2in pieces. Zoe helped with this part with my guidance.
Step 3. Take an old hanger and reshape and bind it into a circle and cut off the top so its a nice continuous circle.
Step 4. Thread the sweater pieces in a pattern of your design. We had to cut small holes into some of the sweaters because they did not have enough space for the hanger. Zoe also helped with this part. It was a great moment to spend time talking about colors, counting and having her guess the pattern, e.g. "What color comes next?"
Viola you have a very inexpensive, but beautiful homemade holiday wreath.
Here is a (somewhat fuzzy) photo of the final product on our front door!
Do you have other great holiday crafts that you enjoy doing with your kids?
Author Jean Liedloff lived for two and half years with natives in the South American jungle. While deep within the forests and within the Indian communities she noted the peacefulness of all tribe inhabitants. In this book shares her observations of the psychology of South American jungle Indian's child rearing practices. She relates these practices to innate human nature which is often lost or forgotten in todays fast paced societies. 
