by Trudy Brown

Created on: October 30, 2009

While the younger children are writing letters to Santa and excitedly counting down days, the teens of the family are lounging on the couch texting their friends about how bored they are. Teenagers are long past feeling the magical glow of the holidays. Rekindle some of that excitement by drawing your teenagers into the decorating and some added family time with Christmas craft projects.

*Metal Christmas trees

Along with various decorative embellishments, you'll need a length of armature wire for this craft which can be purchased at art and hobby stores. The length depends on the size tree you want to make. Find a bottle that has a cone-shaped neck. An old-fashioned coke or ketchup bottle would work. Carefully wrap the wire around the cone part of the bottle as tightly as you can leaving no space between the coils. When you've wrapped the whole wire around the bottle, lift the wire up off of the bottle and pull the coils apart arranging and spacing them as you choose. Bend the very top part to point upwards. This is where you'll place the star. Here you can allow your teen some creativity. They could cut the star out of construction paper or craft foam and decorate with glitter. They could cut a star out of cardboard and wrap it with tin foil to give it some shine. Once they've completed their star, hot glue it to the tree. To decorate the tree, let your teen's creativity be her guide. Use beads, bits of broken jewelry, very small craft jewels, sequins, anything shiny. Hot glue them to the tree.

*Holiday place mats

Give your teen some vinyl place mats and holiday stencils (cookie cutters work if you don't have stencils) and fabric paint. Have them paint Christmas symbols on the place mats, perhaps add family member's names as well. Don't want to buy place mats? You could also have your teen paint holiday pictures on construction paper and use clear contact paper to laminate it.

*Salt dough ornaments

True, this is a craft that could also be done by small children, but the greater motor control and coordination of the older kids guarantees some genuinely beautiful keepsakes. For a salt dough recipe use this link to kaboose.com. Cut the dough out with holiday cookie cutters. Be sure to leave a hole at the top to put a ribbon through for hanging later. Once baked, the shapes will need to cool completely before decorating. Now the fun part. These shapes can be decorated with paint, markers, glitter, decoupage, sequins, or any number of other things. Try using scraps of Christmas wrapping or fabric. Smear the shapes with decoupage medium and then carefully cover them with the wrapping or fabric smoothing out all of the lumps and wrinkles. Add a second coat of decoupage medium and allow it to dry.

The great thing about working with teens is that their greater muscle control and understanding of concepts opens up a world of crafts that the younger kids just can't do yet. Some crafts can be adjusted to different levels, like salt dough ornaments, but added challenges, like decoupage as opposed to glue and markers, is sure to engage the minds and creativity of those older kids who are looking for a reason to believe in Christmas again.

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