I was a person that had an attic full of Christmas stuff.  I love Christmas and when the kids were small the house was so full of Christmas things I had to rotate out my regular decorations each year just to make room for it all.  When we decided to downsize our stuff, I made the conscious decision to give away my Christmas items just like everything else.  The girls had a good time arguing over who got which ornament and several of the items were hotly contested.   All I kept was a small ceramic light up tree I made years ago in a class with my mom and sister, a small nativity scene my Aunt Susie made, and a little light up choir boy I had in my bedroom as a child.  Those items were supposed to come with us and in the spirit of a new simpler life would be all the Christmas decorating I did.  Unfortunately we discovered the Christmas tub was put into storage instead of going into the camper and although Lee offered to have Kyrston ship it, I didn’t want to run the risk of it being broken.  So here we were, with no Christmas decorations.

One thing I knew I did want to do was make edible Christmas decorations for the outside.  A year ago as I was reading Howard and Linda’s blog RV-Dreams I saw that Linda had made outside ornaments her first year on the road and I loved the idea of completely changing things up.  New life …new traditions.  But as I saw pictures of my other friends decorating their rig, I did start to feel a little nostalgic, but it didn’t make sense to buy Christmas stuff and I really didn’t have anything with sentimental attachment.    On my trip to Columbus last week I spent some time with my in-laws and they gave me a gift.  My first “on the road” Christmas ornament.  Well that decided it!!  I needed to go get some cheapie materials for my outdoor tree.  While I was at Dollar General (fantastic place to shop for this kind of stuff btw) I picked up a few small items for the camper.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then Lee found some of my Christmas items in a box in the camper…not the tree but the nativity scene and my little choir boy who I promptly put out.  And I felt quite a bit better.  My friend Jo and I were talking and she said a friend of hers said, “When you are experiencing this much change…continuity is important.”  I thought that was very wise and certainly for me having a small amount of Christmas continuity was a really great thing.  The new with the old is part of this lifestyle and it was nice to have a bit of both.

 

 

 

So once the inside was done I started working on my edible Christmas tree ornaments.  Let me say this took a chunk of time this weekend, but it was really fun and it’s the kind of work you can combine with watching TV or listening to music.  I don’t consider myself particularly crafty (although I hope that changes in the future) so all of these items are pretty simple to do.

Pine Cones Rolled in Birdseed

1. Gather fallen pine cones around the camp site
2. Make a mixture of 1/3 lard to 2/3 peanut butter (the peanut butter alone is too difficult for the birds digestion)
3. Roll pine cone in lard mixture
4. Roll pine cone in bird seed or oatmeal first then bird seed
5. Tie loop to the top of pine cone with biodegradable twine

 

 

Garland

1. Purchase Cheerio’s , Dried Fruit, and cheese crackers
2. Cut lengths of biodegradable twine and quadrupled cotton thread.  Tie large knot in the bottom of each length.
3. For Cheerios only you can thread twine through the holes to make garland
4. For  fruit and cheese crackers use thread and a needle to pierce the fruit or holes
5. Get creative!!

 

 

Well we had tons of ornaments ready to go but Sunday we were moving to our last and final site here in South Carolina.  We have stayed in 30, 7, and 23 and all have been very nice.  I was happy to get back my water view but unfortunately there were no handy trees to put my ornaments on that would have a good view from my desk window.  So Lee and I went to Goodwill to see what we could find, and for $2.99 found a metal CD rack.  It actually comes apart into two pieces and Lee sawed off the lowest rung so we could plant it into the ground outside the camper.  I also bought some Christmas napkins to put on the bottom in the hopes of stopping the squirrels from completely demolishing it the first night.

 

Overall it was more work than I thought but a ton of fun and I love that we got creative on a budget and put something like this together!!

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