Time Recursion

It’s Christmas, and with Christmas it is also time to make the Christmas crib. I’m the one responsible for preparing it at our home, and this year I started the whole preparations and crib making at the last minute, today, since I’ve been away for the rest of the week and had no time earlier.

But this hasn’t affected them in any way, and I think that the final result is quite good compared to the previous years. That is why I’d like to share with you, my readers, a few tips on how to make a unique Christmas crib, without much expense, that will not only make you proud when finished, but also give you some relaxation and fun in the process of making.

So, what are the things that we need? This mostly depends on the landscape you have in mind, but if you’d like to make something more traditional, then you’ll need moss, stones, some old newspaper paper, duct tape, lights and emballage boxes.

First of all, you have to cover the spot you chose for your crib with either some newspaper paper, an old table cover or something else that will ensure no damage will occur to your flor (or excessive humidity by the moss… and anyway, it makes your life easier when it comes the time to clean up everything). The next step is to model the landscape. This year I haven’t got much time to be too inventive, so I just made a hill with a cave out of the box, but if you take more time you can use the paper to make hills, valleys, or anything that comes to your mind. If you’d like to place some lights, or if you have a small water pump and would like to make a river, this is the ideal time to place them into your creation.

When you’re satisfied with the relief of your landscape, you can start placing rocks and forming the entrance of your cave (if you have any). You don’t need any glue, or anything similar, you just have to place the rocks in the way they fit together, and you shouldn’t have any problems. Of course, if you have small kids that like to play on the Christmas crib, gluing the rocks together is not such a bad idea, otherwise you’ll end up with an unrecognizable scene after a few such events.

And now for the final step. Placing the moss and the figures. At this point I’d like to point out, that it is best if you collect the moss at least a week before you plan on making the Christmas crib and leave it spread somewhere on fresh air to dry up. If you don’t follow this suggestion, you may find yourself with different insects coming out from the moss, or even mould, because of the higher indoor temperatures. With the moss on your crib, all you have to do is to place the sand or gravel for the road and the figures. And that’s it!

Now all you have to do is to sit back, power up the lights and enjoy the view on your own Christmas crib.

Here’s also a later addition. My younger brother made a little forest out of small plastic Christmas trees, which came out really nicely.