Christmas trees out of tumbleweeds when I was in Jr. High.
As a child a read about a desert Christmas similar to your story.
Thinking on those simpler times almost makes me weep for what we have lost.
I may have to give that tumble weed tree, and the cotton balls a try!
LOL!
Or, you can make a “snow man” out of tumbleweed. We did that too. Great use of the imagination for kids who never, ever saw real snow (Central California where tumbleweeds were plentiful and the snow never fell.)
A tumblewood tree could be very pretty these days with modern decorative paint that has sparkles in it and tiny lights, which were unknown in 1951. Martha Stewart was probably still in diapers when we did such things.
Youo know nowdays the teachers complain that they have to sped their own money to make decorations for the classroom. In my day they used to ask for volunteers from the class, and we’d bring the decorations from home and were glad to do it. Teacher didn’t spend any money, or time, thinking of how to decorate the classroom.
Tubebender knows all about those tumbleweeds, I’m sure, because we grew up in the same part of the country. The fields where my father and I gathered those tumbleweeds are now subdivisions and strip malls.
Another classroom decoration I remember are the yarn “globes” that we hung from the ceiling. We took donated yarn, dpped it in flour and water paste and wrapped it around balloons in a random pattern. We allowed the yarn to dry overnight and then popped the balloons. We had these hollow spheres of yarn left which we hung from the ceiling of the classroom as a Christmas decoration one year.
For some reason my Jr. High celebrated “Spring Day” which was a day that all of the girls wore their prettiest pastel dresses to school. I remember making chicken wire wall baskets (triangles of checken wire pinned on the bulletin boards that were above the blackboards around the room with thumbtacks.) The holes in the chicken wire were stuffed with crepe paper, and we filled the “baskets” with flowering spring branches that everybody brought to school the mornng of Spring Day.
Again, no money spent by the teacher, everything donated by the kids and their parents, and no time, or effort, put out by the teacher. We loved to do it. We held a meeting, chose a oommittee, discussed the project, and did the job.
Of course in those days, the teacher wouldn’t have had the time, or the budget, to take on these projects. In those days the teachers taught a full day of classes (no free periods — planning was done at home) and had lunchroom duty and recess duty, as well. No aides. No teacher work days, except before school started in the fall, or during Christmas and Easter vacations.
As I said, Martha Stewart was still in diapers!