Santa's Little Helpers

This Thanksgiving my grandkids and their parents were visiting. I had assembled and partially decorated the Christmas tree leaving the addition of more ornaments to the kids. These stuffed ornaments were ones I had made every year, adding to the collection when my own kids were little, in the 1980's. Some of those panels to sew are still available on ebay. The stuffed ornament distribution when the grandkids were finished was quite dense.

I had bought two newer style panels to make up some different ornaments but had not completed them before the two families arrived. I have gotten to one of those panels now and will take/mail the stuffed product from both before Christmas. Sizes of the ornaments varied from a big Santa to a tiny nutcracker, unlike the ones I had collected nearly four decades ago.

Even though some of them are not tree-sized, I added ribbon loops to all five so they could be hung.

Santa was largest. But note the very narrow areas at Santa's wrists and at the pom-pom at the tip of his stocking hat.

His two elf helpers and a nutcracker soldier were smaller.  The elves had a choke point problem at their pom-pom and neck. The nutcracker was fine. He was uniformly narrow.

The wrapped gift was by far the easiest to make.

The panel also came with gift tags but I did not make up any of those.

Santa and elves were not well designed. I devised a work around for the choke points at the wrists, and pom pom of the Santa to alleviate the difficulty in pushing stuffing through. I cut open the seam line in those places, inserted the stuffing locally, and stitched them back closed. The pom poms on the elves just remained stuffing-less.

I have a second set to make for the other family but I will be wiser about those choke points and think through my approach before stitching entirely around the figure. I will also be smarter when I buy future panels to look more closely at the design and not be taken in solely by the bargain price or the cuteness. Here are the five toys made up. Santa may be too big for the tree but I am sure the creativity of a child will find some place to place him.

It was heartwarming to see my grandchildren repeating what I had watched with pleasure years earlier with their mom and dad. Even with a full tree, there were other places for the stuffed ornaments from my children's childhood. This brother and sister duo and their cousin had no problem finding where to tuck in ornaments.

Thinking maybe we can start a tradition at their own homes with these new most recent ornaments I've made, I gave away this set of ornaments to my son's family of five – one stuffed item per family member – a few days ago. I must admit I did not expect that the new tradition initiated in my grandkids' home would be Santa and his Elves playing with lizards (left), snakes (center), and turtles (right). Linking up with Let's Bee Social #254.