Kitchen Tree

I decorated the house early in December, but I proposed to do things a little differently. Instead of buying a big, fresh tree as we have in the past few years, we decided we were happy with some simpler decorations. We put a tall, lit pencil tree on the screen porch just outside the glass doors, so we can see it from the living room. (Pencil trees, by the way, are those artificial trees that are tall and skinny and have a trunk with real bark on it.)  I put another, smaller pencil tree in the kitchen. All of the ornaments on this tree are food-related-- mostly gingerbread.

This little, ceramic  guy is made from Georgia red clay. Each year, I make them with my kindergartners. They cut the rolled clay with a cookie cutter, poking holes in the arms for the wire that will go in after they are fired in the school's kiln. Once cooled, acrylic puffy paint is the frosting and, sometimes, I have them use black sharpie pens for the black dot details. Oh, and to keep straight, whose is whose, each child puts their initials on the back by pressing alphabet macaroni letters into the wet clay. The macaoni burns up in the kiln but the impression of the initial is left in the clay.