Get Cracking On Your Own Reusable Christmas Crackers - The Gloss Magazine

Get Cracking On Your Own Reusable Christmas Crackers

New Christmas tradition incoming… Lilly Higgins instructs on how to make reusable christmas crackers in her book, The Homemade year. 

In Lilly Higgins’s new lifestyle and cookery book The Homemade Year, Things to Make, Do and Eat at Home to Welcome Every Season she has included the directions for her gorgeous, reusable Christmas crackers. Safe to say we are obsessed. The wonderfully curated handbook is filled with seasonal crafts, projects and recipes inspired by Higgins’s own traditions and the Irish calendar. Throughout the book Higgins inserts nostalgic anecdotes which make the reader feel right at home.

Higgins focuses a chapter on the period of time from November to January, the time when we all tend to give ourselves a bit more time to do some Christmassy activities and DIY. The chapter is filled with wonderful sustainable, crafty ideas for things you can make, including these Christmas crackers. New family tradition, check!

“I just adore the festive season so I always need something to look forward to in the new year, once the rush of Christmas is over. My granddad used to always plant hyacinth bulbs in winter. This was a tradition he got from his own grandmother – the Victorians loved hyacinths and revered them for their lingering, sweet fragrance. He would bury the bulbs in a pot and then place them under his bed in late autumn. Once green shoots appeared he would bring them into the light. Like me, he just adored Christmas and faded into a glum shadow of himself by January once all the fun was over. I think these hyacinths brought beauty, hope and an intoxicating smell into his world that reminded him of brighter days ahead. They always remind me so much of him.”

Excerpt from The Homemade Year,  introduction to November, December, January chapter.

REUSABLE CHRISTMAS CRACKERS

If you are thinking of serving up Christmas crackers this year, why not make them yourself? You can personalise them, include your own jokes, choose the family’s favourite sweets and tuck secret notes inside, why have we never done this before? Importantly, they are reusable, which is something we should be thinking about seriously this Christmas. A box of these gorgeous, personalised crackers can also make a lovely gift!

What You’ll Need:

– 6 A4 pieces of felt
– Embroidery thread
– Embroidery needle
– Sweets, jokes written on paper, paper hats, trinkets, etc
– Greaseproof paper
– 6 toilet roll tubes
– Scissors
– Ribbon

Method:

1. First decorate the felt. I do some simple embroidery in different patterns around the centre line of the piece, keeping in mind this will be the main body of the cracker. You can learn some simple embroidery steps on page 325.
2. Make little packages of sweets with the greaseproof paper, including any notes, trinkets or paper hats. Tuck these inside the toilet roll tube.
3. Lay the tube at one end of the felt piece and roll it up in the felt. Tie each end with a ribbon. Repeat with each piece of felt and cardboard tube.
4. Now they’re ready to place on each table setting.

Lilly’s tips
Sanitise your toilet roll tubes by placing them in the centre of the rack in a preheated oven, 100°celsius, for 15 minutes to heat through and kill any bacteria. Don’t leave unattended.

The Homemade Year by Lilly Higgins is published by Gill Books and available now at www.easons.com.

@lilly_higgins_

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