• Ornament created and decorated from wooden craft store kitJupiterimages/Photos.com/Getty Images
  
  While getting presents may be one of the most exciting parts of the Christmas season for kids, giving gifts can be just as enjoyable if they make them first. Kids might like making edible gifts, such as Christmas cookies and gingerbread houses, but they are quickly gone and forgotten. Christmas crafts provide a permanent remembrance of family memories that can be displayed annually.
  
  

Christmas Card Holders

• Put Christmas cards on display or store them away in festive, handcrafted holders. Create a temporary Christmas card garland holder by letting kids decorate old-fashioned, wooden clothespins with acrylic paint and glitter. Once dry, use the clothespins to hang Christmas cards from a ribbon strung along the wall. For a permanent card holder that can be given as a gift, let the children paint and decorate a large, oblong wooden plaque and attach the decorated clothespins to its surface using common wood glue.
  
  Create a festive storage box to hold a larger quantity of cards out of an old shoe box or small cardboard file box. Kids can decorate the cardboard by gluing images cut from last year's recycled Christmas cards and leftover scraps of wrapping paper and ribbons to both the box and lid.
  
  

Tree Ornaments

• Creating an annual commemorative Christmas craft for the tree generates a series of ornaments that preserve memories and track the creative growth of each child. Popsicle sticks can be glued and glittered to resemble the star of Bethlehem. Beads strung on wire or pipe cleaners can be fashioned into a variety of shapes, such as faux candy canes or Christmas wreaths.
  
  Older children can fashion miniature dioramas out of craft dough that can be baked and painted. Once finished, the tiny figures can be mounted in velvet-lined walnut shells or sea shells. Remember to attach a looped ribbon on top of every ornament for easy hanging.
  
  

Wreaths

• Styrofoam ovals available at any flower mart or craft store work well as a base for a variety of wreath projects. Cover the foam with variety of colorful buttons attached with pearl-headed straight pins stuck through the button holes. Multicolored collage wreaths can also be created by gluing tiny bunches of tissue paper or wrapping paper remnants to its surface.
  
  For a traditional green wreath craft, have children paint a bagful of clothespins with various shades of green. Once dry, slip a thick craft wire through the spring holes of the clothespins. Form the wire into a circle and fasten together with a bright red ribbon to complete the traditional look.