When I saw Cindy’s post over at Along the Way, I KNEW I wanted to make a “night tree” with the kids! What exactly is a night tree? It is a Christmas tree decorated with edible ornaments for the animals.
While I was very excited about the idea, my husband had other thoughts…like…what kind of “critters” would we be “inviting” into our yard?!?!? But, somehow I won him over and we now have a “night tree” in our back yard!
First we read the book, Night Tree by Eve Bunting, which is a very cute story about a family and their tradition of decorating a Christmas tree for the animals filled with all kinds of yummy treats!
Afterwards, we went out to cut down a Christmas tree for the VERY first time!
Yes, we do have a fake tree in the house…and probably always will! Last year I almost convinced myself and my husband that we “needed” to have a real tree in the house until I read Jolanthe’s post about why fake is best!!! (Very funny…)
After we cut our little tree, which the kids had a BLAST doing, we got to work making the ornaments! We used sliced apples and oranges and strung popcorn and Cheerios. We also used cookie cutters to make shapes from the bread and then spread PB on them and coated them with the rice, oatmeal, barley, and quinoa. We twine to string the ornaments so that we could hang them.
Who knew that making a Christmas tree for animals would involve so much fine motor skills! The little boys LOVED stringing the Cheerios!
Once we finished all our decorations, we put them on our tree and waited for the birds and squirrels to discover it! Check out our Night Tree!!
Merry Christmas to you and your family!
Nataša
oh man, I need to look for this book. I love that you do it all. Wonderful memories for the kids
We had a hard time making our bird food ornaments. I am going to use bread like you did next year. They weren’t pretty, but the birds still ate them.
This is amazing. What a wonderful idea 🙂 We have a new project for over vacation now!!! Thanks!
We did this a few years ago and it was so much fun for the kids…and me. We read the book then went to the backyard and put up a few feeders in a crabapple tree that is right behind our house, visible from the schoolroom window. They loved watching the squirrels and birds up close (through the window of course). I’m impressed that you actually went out and chopped down your own tree and made all those home made treats! I bet your kids had a blast!
The tree looks beautiful! I am certain that the birds and squirrels will love it. I have starred the post to remember to check out the book. Kerri