Christmas around the world: crafts and traditions

How do we celebrate Christmas around the world?

Christmas is coming and nothing can make it more special than making your own Christmas decorations.

We at Elis Elis were curious to learn more about how other people around the world celebrate the December holiday season, and that’s why we bring you some beautiful Christmas craft ideas from around the world. This way, you will be able to make the most of this festive season and be more creative than ever using materials that we can recycle at home.

Besides, besides crafts, we have another surprise for you this holidays… We have released a new special Christmas collection! Because decorate your clothes as we do with our Christmas tree!

We propose you 4 crafts to discover how Christmas is lived around the world. Start preparing for the celebrations with these nice Christmas crafts from Germany, England, Sweden, and Catalonia. We hope you have a lot of fun with this unique journey around the world!

Germany – BUILD YOUR GINGERBREAD HOUSE

When you think of Christmas in Germany, you think of Nuremberg Lebkuchen, the city’s famous gingerbread. These somewhat spicy treats have been baked for over 600 years and are loved by young and old alike.

 

Baking a gingerbread house is very simple, following a recipe and using a design template that you can find online. The gingerbread house shapes should be much sturdier and more solid than the usual biscuits. We will need a smaller amount of yeast and less butter, so that the house shapes are harder. We also recommend adding water for a softer dough.

Now that you know the German tradition, we suggest you build your own gingerbread house!

When making a gingerbread house, the most important step is to build a solid and sturdy base, and the best way to do this is with a balanced structure. Prepare the patterns very well, make the dough, cut out the shapes, make the covering and assemble the base. Leave the roof for last.

Once you have the structure made and assembled, the best part comes! Decorate your house with your favourite treats, and you will have your gingerbread house ready to surprise the whole family.

UK – THIS FESTIVE SEASON, DECORATE THE TABLE WITH CHRISTMAS CRACKERS!

Christmas Crackers are festive table decorations that make a noise when they are stretched out and opened. They often contain a small gift, cheeks, treats or a joke. They are part of Christmas celebrations in the UK and are also very common in Ireland and Commonwealth countries such as Australia, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa.

A sustainable and environmentally friendly way to reuse toilet rolls we have lying around the house is to make Christmas Crackers to add a personal touch to the festive season.

You will need an A4 of patterned paper, wallpaper, or plain paper to decorate with Cardboard tubes (e.g. toilet roll or kitchen roll holders), paints for decorating, a ribbon, or string for tying, scissors, glue and finally, the fillings: sweets, toys, games, jokes…

Start decorating the outside of the cracker by letting your imagination run wild with paints or whatever you wish. Make sure your A4 paper is placed face down on a table and place your cardboard tube in the centre of the paper. Then wrap the paper around the cardboard tube. The cardboard tube will give extra structure to your cracker, so it won’t fall apart. Carefully turn one side of the cracker and secure one end of the cardboard tube with a festive ribbon. Then gently add the cracker fillings, being careful not to overfill, and secure the other side with a ribbon.

There you have it! Finally, place your unique and fantastic cracker on the table to welcome guests, the perfect finishing touch to your Christmas table decoration.

 

SWEDEN – Make Swedish Tomte Christmas decorations

The Tomte are mischievous and lonely spirits that protect and look after the Zuma farms during the Christmas season. From Elis Elis we suggest you to add a Swedish Christmas decoration to your tree with a Tomte ornament.

The paper Tomten is easy to make and uses materials you probably already have at home!

You need: coloured paper in red, white and the skin tone of your choice, scissors, ribbon, invisible thread (you can also use ribbon or regular string), black pencil and a glue stick.

Cut out red and white paper triangles and make sure they are symmetrical. Cut out circles for the faces. You can use one colour for uniformity or different colours for a diverse group of Tomten! Glue the Tomten parts together, with a red triangle for the hat and a white triangle for the beard. Draw faces on the exposed part of the circle. And finally, cut the invisible thread (or string) to the desired length and tape the thread together.

Hang your festive Tomten garland in the window, on your Christmas tree, or wherever you think a bunch of mischievous gnomes should hang out and guard your house.

CATALONIA – LET’S MAKE OUR TION! With toilet paper and cardboard roll

Last but not least, we want to talk about a tradition from Catalonia that many of you may not know about: making a tió. A magic tree trunk, decorated with a barretina and a smiley face is one of the most beloved Christmas traditions in Catalonia. Do you know it?

The tradition consists of making a piece of tree trunk or thick branch appear at home a few days before Christmas Day. Placing it in a sheltered corner with a blanket to keep it warm and feeding it daily with leftover food until the magical night of 24th December, when lots of presents appear while singing a song.

At Elis Elis we suggest you make a tió with a roll of toilet paper and cardboard. Making a tió has never been so easy. All you need is cardboard, a roll of toilet paper or kitchen roll, paint and a mini barretina.

Draw a nice, smiling face on the cardboard. The face should be the size of the end of the roll. Then, with brown paint, make the toilet paper roll look like a log and finally glue the cardboard face and the barretina to the toilet paper roll.

Now you have a mini tió! If you take good care of him this festive season and make him do his magic on the night of the 24th, he will surely surprise you.

If you want to share with us pictures of your crafts or how you have decorated your clothes with the new special Christmas collection over the festive season, we would love to see them!