The Christmas Sweetie tree is one of the those Christmas traditions that I recall from my own childhood, although when I say tradition it may have been only one! Still it’s something, an idea, that’s stuck with me for the last 25 years or so.
It’s a simple enough thing to execute and, if you’ve got kids, is something that can be used to, erm, encourage better behaviour when they’re bouncing off the walls with the building excitement in the run up to the main event! If you don’t have kids it’s still a nice wee touch that feeds into the whole happy, shiny, sparkly Christmas feeling and you can encourage guest to help themselves.
All you really need is a twig, not too spindly and not too bulky that you can hang your sweeties from. I’ve used Quality Street, but any sweetie with shiny wrapping or even some home baked delights could work. You also need a base, I’ve used half a log, cut to shape, although a nice bottle fill with ballast (sand perhaps?) would work well too.
Take your twig and use some silver spray paint to cover it in it’s entirety then, using some gold spray paint, give it a quick once over allowing most the silver to show through. Mount your twig in it’s base and then tie your sweeties of Christmas baking goodies on with some thread, ribbon, or whatever takes your fancy … I used hemp cord because it came to hand and the thread was further away!
