How to Disneyfy Christmas Through Craft Projects
As the song goes, it’s the most wonderful time of the year. Yes, Christmas, a holiday that everyone in North America loves, even if they’re not religious. On this holiday, everyone gets a day off from work, and many people even save up their vacation days to take the week off. With all the free time, you have plenty of opportunities to dress up your holiday celebration. MickeyBlog recommends that you do in the most fitting way possible. Here’s a guide on how to Disney-fy your Christmas celebration via some crafting projects.
Craft Time!
You may remember that when we suggested Disney-fying tips for Thanksgiving, we had several suggestions that involved crafting and baking. That’ll still hold true today. Today, we’ll focus on the former and save the baking for tomorrow.
Disney’s website archive features ton of wonderful, easy projects that will bring a bit of magic into your holiday celebration. Most of the crafted items will take 30 minutes or less, meaning that a family can create a lot of Disney items in a couple of hours. Here are some of my favorite suggestions:
- Mickey and Minnie Mouse Holiday Wreath — At 60 minutes, this DIY wreath is the most time-consuming suggestion on this list, but it’s well worth the effort. Once you’ve completed it, you can re-use it in future years. The gist of the crafting process is that you take a regular wreath and modify with some pasting. It’s easy to do, and you’ll feel delighted by the resulting holiday wreath.
- Nightmare Before Christmas Party Invitations – Are your friends Disney fans who love the quirky, upbeat hero named Jack Skellington? If so, you can send out official invites to your holiday party using one of the oddest protagonists in Disney animation history. I should warn you that the character is a bit off-putting to those unfamiliar with his, ahem, bony structure. So, your kids and other people your age should love it. I wouldn’t send it to Grandma and Grandpa, though. Crafting the invitations takes 15 minutes.
- DIY Holiday Gift Tags – I’ll be honest. Store-bought Disney tags only cost a few dollars and don’t require any effort on your part. Still, there’s something endearing about the family all sitting down to make gift tags. Each member can pick their favorite Disney character, making it the signature tag identifying the gift giver. It’s a 10-minute project that unites the family. I would suggest that you make this particular project a family tradition.
- Holiday Mini-Trees – Nothing says Christmas like a tiny tree, right? Well, you can DIY a series of them based on your favorite Disney Princesses. The crafting process is virtually identical for each one, and you can use your own inspiration to choose the materials that make each tree unique. The link above suggests materials for Ariel, Belle, and Cinderella, but your family is plenty creative enough to come up with something with Rapunzel, Merida, or anyone else you love. Each tree takes about 10 minutes, although the margin for error on these is smaller than some of the others listed here.
- A No-Sew DIY Olaf Blanket – I understand that Frozen fatigue is a real thing, but I strongly suspect that Olaf’s Frozen Adventure has rekindled your children’s (and hopefully your) love of Disney’s favorite singing snowman. With just a few materials, you can piece together a blanket full of love. Nothing says December like a family swaddled together under the covers, laughing and savoring each other’s company. These are the memories that last a lifetime, and that Olaf Blanket you spend 20 minutes crafting today could be something that your child finds in the attic in 40 years. It’s a guaranteed smile for your kid today AND a few decades from now. What could be better than that?
- Stitch Holiday Tree Topper – Simply by mentioning that this exists, I’m making a tactical error. There’s every chance that my wife will see this and thereby demand that we spend 15 minutes building this thing. You see, mine is a house divided. I’m Team Lilo, and the missus is Team Stitch…and I mean compulsively so. She probably has 80% of the Stitch merchandise Disney has released over the past five years. And now that I’ve pointed out the gaps in her collection, she’ll spend hours tracking down the other 20%. But I digress. The point is that your Christmas tree needs a topper. Conventional centerpieces are lovely and oftentimes a family’s annual tradition. I’m not looking to mess with that. What I do know is that a lot of Mickey Travelers have Disney-only trees. Putting Stitch at the top of a Disney tree is the next best thing to having Lilo as the centerpiece. #TeamLilo
- Jasmine Holiday Stocking – I am a firm believer that store-bought stockings are lazy and impersonal. The stocking on the chimney means something to a family. Each stocking is more than just a name. It’s a reflection of each individual. You want a stocking that shows you and your children’s personalities. Like the mini-trees above, several variations of these are possible. Your choice depends on the type of Princess or other Disney character that you love. You can get wildly creative with these. The only baseline is that the color of the stocking should be symmetrical with the basic colors of the character, akin to DisneyBounding. After ten minutes of work, you can craft a stocking that will sit on the shelf for many years to come. What’s better than that?
- Porg Puppet – New traditions have to start somewhere. Plus, you need to hook your kids with more modern characters. Back in your day, you might have loved the Ewoks or (*shudder*) Jar Jar Binks. Well, the children of 2017 are all about the latest Star Wars sensation, the Porg. It’s some sort of alien penguin with huge eyes and an expressive face. Chewbacca clearly loves them, and your kids almost certainly do, too. You can build a Porg Puppet in only a few minutes, and this is the crafted item listed here that may prove popular well into the New Year. Kids never truly tire of Star Wars kawaii.
To finish most of these projects, you’ll need the same basic set of items like scissors, card stock, regular printer paper, tape, ribbon, and a hole punch. Read the included links carefully to make sure that you have the appropriate materials for each one. If you were to start crafting these items on Christmas Eve, you might realize you need something too late. You won’t find a lot of crafting stores open on December 24th and 25th. Be prepared by planning ahead, my friends!
Tomorrow, I nurture your sweet tooth. You should hit the gym right now in anticipation of the metric ton of calories I’m about to suggest.
David Mumpower is the author of the Disney Demystified series. For only $4.99 each, you can read book one about Disneyland or book two about Walt Disney World. The softcover books also make amazing stocking stuffers this holiday season!