Catholic Activity: Christmas Surprise Ball

Here is a creative idea for a fun homemade Christmas gift.

DIRECTIONS

A gift that is fun to make is a Christmas Surprise Ball, and it is not so demanding that we need cease all conversation while we make it. It is adapted from a custom invented by German mothers to help dispel the boredom and discouragement that go with learning to knit. It is made with narrow streamers of crepe paper cut about one-half inch wide from a package of crepe paper. We like to start winding the paper in a Christmas Ball around a tiny figure of the Christ Child, an especially nice medal, or perhaps a small rosary. As the ball grows larger, other things are wound in: a thimble, a pretty button, a gilded acorn, tiny trinkets or charms, especially those symbolic of a patron saint or some Christmas legend.

Activity Source: Year and Our Children, The by Mary Reed Newland, P.J. Kenedy & Sons, New York, 1956