When I was growing up, we always went to my Grandma’s house in Vegreville on Boxing Day to celebrate Christmas with my aunt, uncles and cousins. There was a kid’s table and at each place setting there was a Christmas cracker so I associated them as part of the holidays and wanted them to be a tradition I incorporated into my own family someday.

When I was a young mom of two kids and The Husband was a student, we didn’t have an extra penny. We had moved back to our hometown to be closer to family when our baby was sick with kidney complications and The Husband had gone back to school. That year, I had worked hard making crafts to sell at a sale in our basement so that we would have money to buy food and a few gifts at Christmas so there was certainly no chance I could afford to buy Christmas crackers. I decided to make them.

I added a numbered strip of paper into each one that had a part of the Christmas story. When put in order, they told the story. I used scriptures from different gospels and pieced them together. At our Christmas Eve celebration that year, we all (adults too) opened our Christmas crackers and read our scripture verses in the right order to retell the story of Jesus’ birth.

This year, I slipped strips of paper into the crackers that all said the same thing. “For unto us a Child is born.”-Isaiah 9:6

To make the crackers, you need:

• empty toilet paper rolls
• tissue paper
• small toys or candy
• paper
• ribbon, tape or string

Fill the empty toilet paper roll with candy or little toys or trinkets. I used to also make crowns out of tissue paper and fold them tightly to fit them in just like a store bought Christmas cracker. Slip your paper with the scripture verse or encouragement in.

Roll the cardboard tube in tissue paper. Secure the ends by tying ribbon (or tape or string) at the ends of the roll, leaving some tissue paper sticking out each end. Decorate using ribbon. You can also curl the ends of the ribbon using scissors.

Sometimes the most obvious answer is right in front of you. If you look closely at the picture of the single Christmas cracker, you may notice that the decorative strip around it is made of tin foil. I cut a thin strip of tin foil, wrapped it around to decorate and secured it with a glue stick. My friend Christie was here at the time and gently pointed out that I could always just use ribbon which would be much easier! I decorated the rest using ribbon! I tell you this only to say that if you didn’t have ribbon and wanted to add some flair to your crackers, you could use tin foil.

I remember making these ornaments with my grandma one year when I was about 9. They are easy to make but younger children will need an adult to do the sewing part for them. One of the things I like about them is that they really allow for creativity. They can be simple or you can pull out the glitter glue and embellishments and let your kids go to town!

materials needed:

felt pieces
scissors
string or yarn
glue
sewing needle
optional: embellishments such as glitter glue, sequins, buttons, faux fur, foam shapes, stickers

Trace the shape of a stocking onto a piece of paper and cut it out. Lay the cutout onto the piece of felt and trace two of the stockings with a marker or chalk. Cut them both out.

Lay the pieces of felt together so that the marker outline is on the inside (not visible). Starting at the top of the stocking, sew down around the stocking and up the other side, leaving an opening across the top.

We tried to do the sewing with a plastic needle so that the younger kids could sew theirs, but it was too difficult to get through the two layers of felt so we used metal sewing needles. The older kids sewed their own (the ones pictured above) and we sewed for the younger kids.

The kids cut shapes out of the scraps of felt remaining (in the other colour) to add some flair to their stockings. I didn’t give them any instruction for this bit and just let them create. I also set out some faux fur that some of them added to their ornaments. Some of the kids chose to add a loop to the top of theirs to hang on the tree while others chose to keep it as a cute mini stocking without adding a loop. These crafts are actually quite sweet!