My Favorite Holiday Tradition

My favorite Christmas memory growing up was our annual Christmas pinata. Filled with goodies and gifts and goodies it was a great way to tide the kids over until the "big" presents were opened after dinner on Christmas eve. In my family the pinata was made with an entire roll of wrapping paper made into a large bag, filled with presents and attached to a curtain rod.

Gifts typically included socks, calendars, t-shirts, books, gift certificates and other things. Each family member got one of each gift and the gifts inside were individually wrapped and were usually specific for the individual. With the exception of the one year we all ended up in a similar type of athletic sweatshirts - made for a good family photo! Kids and adults alike would take turns taking blindfolded whacks at the pinata until it came crashing down to a chorus of loud cheers and enthusiastic hoorahs!



The majority of the cousins in my family have grown up and the pinata tradition has come to an end but it is a tradition I will greatly miss and hope to begin again when I start my own family some day. My families style of pinata required a large amount of wrapping paper and tape and wasn't very estetically pleasing. So in the interest of design and being eco-friendly below are instructions for a DIY Christmas Pinata couresty of Craftbits.com.

Materials needed are PaperMache, Balloon, Christmas tinsel, decorative bows, and a bag of mixed wrapped sweets. (I figure you could probably use small gifts or trinkets as well for the filling).



1. Start by blowing up your Balloon and tie it off to secure.

2. Now make a paper mache mix. (paper mache mix is White wood glue with small amount of water or flour and water to make a gluing paste)

3. Cut some brown paper or newspaper into strips. Dip it into the glue then place it down onto the balloon. Keep doing this in single layers until the balloon is covered then allow that layer to dry before adding another layer. Keep doing this until it is around 3-4 layers thick.

4. Once it has dried using a large pin push a hole through the paper mache to pop the balloon inside.

5. Use a blade to cut a flap into the bottom of the paper mache pinata. It needs to be big enough to add the sweets. Place your sweets in then sticky tape the whole closed.

6. Tie some string to the top and then coat the whole ball with spray paint and allow to dry before decorating with tinsel and bows.

Viola! You have a Christmas pinata! A tradition I have enjoyed for years and I hope your family enjoys just as much! :)