On the tenth day - return of the hazel

Back in day three we went looking for a nice piece of hazel for Eilir's shepherd's staff and we saved the remaining piece to make a traditional Christmas decoration for Eilir's bedroom.

During the day yesterday we made a few things to adorn it, including pomanders like Steph and G made in their first day, inspired by a load of reduced to clear oranges in the shop (24p for a bag-full - bargain!). Ours are a mixture of designs, including names, faces, and spirals. Eilir liked doing these, particularly making all the holes with our trusty barbecue skewers (we seem to be using these a lot lately) and ran upstairs to his older brother (Tathan) calling "Smell my hands", to which he suspiciously replied "Why?", and got the response "They smell Christmassy!" Didn't take any photos of this making process, my phone had suffered enough the day before with the icing - I thought it best not to cover it in sticky orange juice and cloves too!

We also collected up silver cake cases that Eilir's brother (Fred) had amassed (he's a cherry bakewell addict), and again poked holes in them with our skewers and threaded old laces through them, making knots in the lace in-between them to space them out. Eilir grabbed one of these and did an impromptu song and dance while shaking it "Ding-a ling-a-ling, ding-a-ling-a-ling, clychau Santa Claus. Ding-a-ling-a-ling, ding-a-ling-a-ling, yn canu yn y nos" (rough translation: Santa Claus' bells, ringing in the night). For the final touches we added some decorations Eilir had made in school.

Eilir was very excited on re-entering the room when he realised it made his room smell festive, Fred (who he shares with) was less than impressed though, "It stinks!" The next morning the branches were overhanging the bed - the load had got too much. Eilir liked the effect and wanted a photo of it with him in bed. We've managed to anchor it now so that it's upright once more, it should still be in place when Santa comes a calling (fingers crossed).