December Crafternoon

December Crafternoon is always one of my favorites. The house is decorated, I get to make fun little party gifts, and there are loads of Christmas cookies. For the craft I wanted something super simple and with very little supplies, so I had everyone pick up a couple of packs of Sculpey polymer clay and we just made ornaments. I didn’t even get photos of any of the ornaments this time, but it was pretty laid back which I think is perfect way to end the year.
A few nights before Crafternoon I made The Splendid Table’s buttermints. They were so easy to make and taste so great that I think I am going to make it a yearly tradition to make up a big batch of them (Tom’s mom does this with fudge and we really look forward to getting a tin of fudge each Christmas from her) I packaged the buttermints up into little jars and tied some snowmen I printed out on. I originally had plans to make the snowmen into ornaments by pasting the cut out on wood and using my scroll saw, but I kept breaking off the hat brims and finally gave up on that idea.
For the white elephant we did something different that I think worked out quite well! We did a stocking exchange and I decided to wrap my gifts like parcels (need to remember to wrap more gifts this way next Christmas, so much fun!!) and then I had to sew a huge ridiculous Santa stocking to fit the boxes inside. Ahead of time I made up little cards that said things like “swap stockings with the person whose birthday is closest to Christmas”. Then when we were ready to do the stocking swap I had everyone start by picking up a stocking that did not belong to them. Then we went around the circle each person drawing a card and doing what it instructed. I made about twice as many cards as there were people so the stockings would travel around a bunch. It worked out so well, and everyone ended up with a stocking that was not theirs. I figured if someone at the end had theirs I would have them draw one of the cards we already used to swap it out, but it wasn’t needed.