Tearing the teen away from their cell phones, Playstations, and instant messaging is like trying to take candy away from a baby. Then again, some teens would rather do crafts than spend time with technology.
And due to that unavoidable emotional build-up to Christmas, getting your teen interested in making a Christmas craft can be quite a challenge. They may only want to spend a few hours or hopefully they'll want to spend the whole day. Fortunately, teens are more adept at handling glue guns and sewing needles. This is where most Christmas crafts start, with a little bit of glue and some thread.
Sewing:
Sewing is always a popular idea and it's not always just for girls. Perhaps the quickest craft is creating Christmas place-mats for the dining table. Sewing stores sell seasonally themed place-mat fabric. All you need to do is to cut around the borders the fabric provides, add a bit of lining, and then finish off with either a solid color on the other side or another themed design. If your teen is nervous about sewing, pick up some fabric adhesive while you are at the fabric store or you can also use fabric glue.
Colorful fabric Christmas coasters can be made the same way as place-mats. Buy a yard of fabric with little Christmas trees, presents or elves, cut them into squares, and glue them together. For a special touch, add a lavender dryer sheet between the layers. Maybe add a few drops of cinnamon oil onto the lining or rub it into an unscented dryer sheet. When the hot mug or cup is placed on the fabric, the heat will release a little Christmas aromatherapy into the room.
Craft kits:
Craft stores have pre-made craft kits too. They have everything from wooden ornaments and Christmas aprons to festive rug latch kits. These kits can be put together in under a few hours, as we all know how restless teens can get sitting in one place for too long!
Christmas stationary:
Teens can also create their own Christmas stationary. This is where the computer comes in handy. There are several free websites where Christmas images can be downloaded for free. And even Clip Art on a PC has some holiday banners and photos that can be printed out onto colored stationary paper. They can even be printed onto to envelopes when you and the kids get ready to send out your Christmas cards.
Remember those place-mats mentioned earlier? The computer can also be used to print out special designs to match whatever theme or color scheme you are having this year. Print out on transfer paper and iron the design onto the fabric.
Decorative Christmas mugs:
Buy some old plain mugs from Goodwill or charity stores and using a glue gun, decorate them with beads, glitter, or glue a strip of Christmas fabric around the middle -this way the mug can still be used to drink from. But if you want to use it for festive dcor, such as holding a bunch of candy canes, then the sky is the limit with the amount of colorful glitter you can apply. Add a few small painted pine cones around the rim of the mug or base of the saucer.
Decorative Christmas plate:
A plain glass plate can be livened up with some colorful glitter glue around the rim, or again with the glue gun, attach glittered pine cones or beads. A decorated plate makes a fantastic Christmas candle holder and, for the little kids in the family, it will definitely come in handy for leaving those cookies out for Santa!
The biggest task is to get your teen interested in making things by hand instead of rushing to the department stores. It is a great way to spend time together and it doesn't always have to involve 'talking'. Sometimes the shared crafting silence can create more of spiritual bond without the teen feeling pressured to converse when they would rather be on their cell phone or waving their game controllers in the air. But once they see what they can make in a short span of time and how much it is appreciated, they will not be so resistant to help out for the next holiday, which much to our dismay, is always fast approaching!