A Weird Christmas Ornament-Making Party

All through the year, family and friends collect toys, cast-off Christmas decorations, and odds-and-ends from garage sales for the Disturbing Christmas Party, hosted by my husband's aunt. 

Each year on the held the Saturday after Thanksgiving, we make the drive up to Santa Rosa to break apart knick-knacks in order to re-form them into new decorations to hang on the tree. A lot of the ornaments are tongue-in-cheek takes on the Christmas theme.

Our son is often the only child at this party. It’s still great for him. What’s fun about it is that it teaches the fun of being free to create; no wrong answers—and we are all unleashed to make funny, silly, odd or sometimes disturbing decorations for the white Christmas tree.

This year the raw materials for the party had some fun additions. There were several plastic dinosaurs. From these we created the “Jingle-Saurus” and T-Rex Holiday Fairy. Someone else had brought a small rubber fly. This, combined with a kitty-cat turned into a “Cat-on-Fly-delivering-Present” ornament. Another dinosaur plus action figure plus trumpet turned into a “Jurassic Christmas Herald”. 

My Facebook picture is a picture of co-joined twins made with Brat Dolls—an existential creation from one of the parties.

It’s great to see adults intently focused on each creation and the gleeful sharing with the group.

What is the best party of the year? For us, it's my husband’s aunt’s annual party.