Homemade Present Toppers / Guest Blogger - Lisa Nightingale

Homemade Christmas present toppers

Hey everyone! My name is Lisa & I have a silly three-year-old named Oliver who loves ALL things Christmas. When I was younger, my mom always decorated our home to the nines. Every corner was filled with decorated trees, lights & little reindeer. Even though I love all that goodness, our tiny apartment would feel a bit too cluttered, but I still try & make our home cozy & festive. Our favorite thing in the house during Christmas is our tree. Every year we have a tradition where we pick out one ornament for each of us. My family & my husband's family did it growing up & so we have kept this little tradition going for Ollie, that way when he has his own family, he will have an entire collection of ornaments! I love this because each one holds such dear memories.

Ollie is getting old enough to really enjoy this holiday season, so it has been easier to include him in some of the decorating. For our present toppers, we always like to buy cute little ornament & string them with the ribbon on top of our gifts, but this year we wanted to do something simple. I have been seeing a lot of my friends drying oranges & making cinnamon ornaments & that sounded perfect &, most importantly, easy! Ollie had so much fun rolling out the cinnamon dough & cutting out little shapes while I sliced up the oranges.

To make the dried oranges, preheat oven to 200 degrees Fahrenheit & then cut the oranges in 1/4 inch thick slices, lay them directly on your oven racks & turn over every 30 minutes until dried (between 2-3 hours).

After waiting (impatiently) for the oranges & the ornaments to dry, we got on our bed & started wrapping some gifts. Ollie kept wanting to eat the oranges & kept wondering why we were putting them on presents instead of eating them as a snack :) Overall, these were the perfect things to make on a rainy day while listening to Bing Crosby holiday music.