This Christmas craft nightmare will never fade into obscurity in our family. Of that I am certain.
Cast your eyes above. You could be forgiven for puzzling over this little gem. Look closely. Still uncertain? No worries. It’s my son’s snowman snow globe that he made back in 2001 at the age of six. It originally looked a bit different. Back then the top hat was jauntily affixed to the head and the water level was right at the top.
He crafted this marvel during the Festive Family Craft Night held at a friend’s local elementary school. Somehow we managed to talk my 19-year-old nephew into also joining us.
What an impressive event. Several classrooms were involved, each one offering the creation of a different craft. For simplicity, we chose to do the same craft. Snow globe making. My first clue that things might be a bit different from expected came with the participants. It was the four of us plus several children, mostly boys, all visibly under the age of ten. No other adults in sight.
With my nephew insightfully choosing to work alongside the organized “old soul” that was my seven year-old daughter, I paired up with my decidedly less patient son. The other crafters struck out on their own.
Following the expertly laid out instructions of our young volunteer instructor, we gathered our supplies and launched into steps one and two of the project. The affixing of “buttons” to the snowman’s chest and facial features to his head. Perfect. Next came the placement of his hat. Again no problem. With mounting confidence, we supplied him with branch arms and glued on a scarf.
It was too good to last.
“I can’t do it. His buttons keep bouncing off!” wailed the lonely waif sitting next to me.
As I reached over to assist, another voice rang out.
“My head keeps falling off!”
Rather startled, Bachelor Nephew hesitantly leaned over to reglue the decapitated head. Suddenly a clutch of lads encircled us; thrusting out their snowmen with wild abandon. Almost all of their creations were in various states of undress.
After several minutes of abject chaos, our project volunteer mercifully took pity on us and manfully took on his share of the required help.
Every once in a while someone’s mother would pop in for a quick update. I’ll never forget my nephew’s eyes as they fell upon the buxom gal puffing on a cigarette. She was sporting thick makeup, tight jeans and a much tighter top with the latter failing to cover a good portion of her midriff.
“Scott! Hurry up! I need you to help me hold the wire of my swag. I’m downstairs in the library. Hurry up!” she barked from the doorway to the youngest crafter in the room. My nephew’s strangled choke caused her to swivel her focus. Blowing smoke in Lance’s direction she immediately sashayed over for a disingenuous peek at her son’s snowman.
I’d never seen my nephew pay such close attention to a craft. His cousin’s. Not her son’s.
As the realization dawned that a potential tryst wasn’t about to happen in the snow globe room, she tossed her crispy yellow locks and stomped out, presumably back to her swag. Feeling more than a bit sorry for her lad, I dumped a healthy handful of glitter to his already teetering pile.
Silence descended as we all resumed work on our globes.The trickiest bit of all was yet to come. The upside down guiding of the now bonded snowman into the upturned globe holding the oily water and glitter. By the time my nephew and I managed to finish our share of at least eight of these numbers, we were more than qualified to entertain thoughts of a successful snow globe startup.
Since that December night of 2001, both snow globes spend the Christmas season on the mantle over the living room fireplace. Hers has survived quite a bit better. Of course, she had her cousin as her gifted assistant.
Every year as the family gathers together over the holidays, one of us will gently take my son’s snow globe down from its perch and present it to my nephew for a viewing. He usually reacts somewhat like this…
That’s enough about our Christmas Craft Nightmare. I’m curious about you. Have you ever had a Christmas craft delight such as this? If you’d care to share, I’d love to hear.
18 Responses
Oh, Kelly, those stories really are what Christmas is about. No crafts stories, but a Christmas brunch was memorable. The in-laws and my mom gathered at our house. My mom was quite a good cook and that morning she made omelets with fresh vegetables, feta cheese and her “secret” sauce. It was a miracle – getting all of those omelets served while still hot. We sat down, said grace, my MIL looked out over the beautiful table and said, “Oh, no, Linda. You forgot the ketchup for the scrambled eggs.” A memorable moment, indeed.
Linda – this is a gem of a story. I just love it. You forgot the special sauce … Ketchup! Thank you so very much for sharing it. An absolute classic, no? And what a delicious sounding brunch. My kind of omelet.
BWAH HA HA HA!! The thought of Lance surrounded by all the children fixing their snowglobes is HILARIOUS…and then adding in the mom made me crack up! This is a great story! :)-Ashley
Ashley- honestly you had to be there to believe it. It was classic. 19 is an awkward age to begin with and when you throw in confusing crafts, tired and frustrated kids and amorous women, well let’s just say there are stories to be told!
Our Christmas tree is resplendent with ornaments that the kids made at school throughout the years. We were lucky to always have had experienced teachers who had tweaked the process enough to make it pretty fool-proof. Not unlike your children’s soapstone whale projects! We do have one beautifully, pitiful ornament that was made for my daughter by a boy when they were in kindergarten. It’s a styrofoam ball on which he drew some stars and then attached some beads with straight pins. Perhaps now that Annie is married – and Jewish – it’s time to retire this particular ornament.
A styrofoam ball on which he drew some stars and then attached some beads with straight pins? Absolutely classic. Yes, time for a long, well deserved retirement, I’d say.
Very funny story! Love the jacket-up globe that still makes it on your mantle every single year…he he he! I do still have little crafts my boys made in pre-school. I’m a sucker for them, too. When they start to fall apart I trash ’em. But if they’re still able to hang on the tree, or sit in the frame or whatever the case may be, I keep them. I know for a fact I have three hand turkeys laminated into place mats, and several hand wreaths, too! Lots of ornaments, and a few frames. So sweet.
Yikes — this ended up in my spam column. So glad I saw it. Just between you and me – some of my guys’ crafts found their way to the top of the fridge where they lived for a wee bit. If they weren’t remarked up they magically found themselves in a new home… the delightful garbage can. However, the ones that were truly special were treated the same as yours. Held and treasured until they fell apart.
No Christmas craft nightmares but this was cracking me up. I have had plenty of Christmas cookie nightmares though!
Ohhhh yes, the Christmas cookie nightmare is also in my bag of tricks. Just love those cookies that look so lovely on the cookie tray and then poof! – explode into ten pieces during the transfer onto the cooling rack. Or the shaped ones that break in half in the container. Or the burnt ones …
Kelly, this is the second post in a few weeks I’ve read about your kids’ craft projects – you are so good about keeping those around! I’d be hard pressed to find some of the “gems” my kids have made. Crafts usually end in nightmares for me.
Oh you have no idea Dana how many have “found other homes” over the years. I’ve kept but a handful.
Haha!! What an awesome story! I could picture it happening as I was reading it. When I first looked at the picture, I honestly thought it was one of those melting snowman snow globes!
Ohhhhhh a melting snowman snow globe? Hmmm. Lance and I could add that to our repertoire…
Hilarious story Kelly ! Loved the mother that kept popping in !
Oh Jane – you can imagine. Quite something.
I agree with Linda that Christmas is so much about these crafting together traditions and sharing memories and stories about the making. Lance’s glance-at-the-past photo is a keeper. And now I know for sure and would bet ten dollars that kids city-wide want to be in your family. Talk about using the “what” word. How about, “What a mom!”
As for me? In my family we made paper mache balla-shaped ornaments and painted them colorfully. As a kid, I could not decide which color. So I painted it red, then green which made it brown! To this day, my family says, “Is the turd ball up yet?”
Hahahahaha! What a mom! Love it. My children would have a field day with that one let me tell you. The comments that are flying back and forth between them as they read these posts is hilarious. Today’s was about a photo of them that I posted. My response? You should have seen the ones I didn’t post!
I have to tell you – I threw back my head and hooted with laughter over the “Is the turd ball up yet?” Classic family stuff. Classic.