Make Your Own Old Fashioned Christmas Garland
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Make Your Own Old Fashioned Christmas Garland
This Christmas season we are trying to be more intentional about having an “Old Fashion Christmas.” For us, that means keeping family traditions alive, as well as creating some new ones. Popcorn garland is something that my husband and I remember doing as children but have not done with our own family. And is there anything more “old-fashioned” than popcorn garland hanging on the Christmas tree? I don’t think so! So, this year we started a new tradition by making this popcorn garland with dried oranges and cranberries.
In the early days, settlers couldn’t stop at the store and pick up a box of fancy ornaments. Nor, did most people have the luxury of spending on “extras” such as Christmas decorations. Instead, they used what they had and decorated the tree with popcorn, nuts, dried fruits, and handmade ornaments.
Now, depending on where you live, oranges may be hard to come by. Living in the Midwest United States, oranges would have been considered a special treat fit for a special stocking stuffer. Not to be turned into a Christmas tree decoration. But, today’s grocery stores make oranges a luxury that we are able to have any time of the year. And we are able to purchase at a very low cost, most times. Oranges are also very festive, natural, and fill a room with nice smells. Not to mention that dried oranges look so pretty on the Christmas Tree because the light shines right through them. I had to use them in our garland too. Call it Old-Fashioned Popcorn garland with a twist.
I hope you enjoy seeing how we made our Popcorn Garland with cranberries and dried oranges.
More Ideas for Celebrating an Old-Fashioned Christmas:
Plan and Celebrate an Old-Fashioned Christmas (Free Planning Sheet)
Throw a Christmas Decorating Party
Make Your Own Old Fashioned Popcorn Christmas Garland with Dried Oranges & Cranberries
Decorate With Nature
Rosettes- A Scandinavian Cookie Tradition
Make Homemade Gifts: Large List of Unique Homemade Gifts
How to Make Beeswax Rolled Candles
Dehydrate Your Oranges
You will want to start by dehydrating your oranges for your Christmas Garland. Cut oranges into thin slices about 1/4 inch thick. You could use a mandoline for this job which would allow you to get thinner slices and they would be more uniform. I prefer to use a knife.
We have a large Cabella’s Dehydrator, like this one, that we use for making jerky, dehydrating herbs, and drying out fruits and veggies. It is a really handy tool to invest in if you plan to grow and store your own food. If you are going to be dehydrating large batches of meat, veggies, fruits, and herbs then you may want to invest in a large dehydrator like this.
I find that it takes me an extra few hours to dehydrate most things. Because of that, I decided to set our dehydrator to the highest temperature setting which is 160 degrees Fahrenheit. If you are not familiar with how your dehydrator runs then you may want to preheat it at a lower temp such as 135 degrees Fahrenheit.
Place the orange slices onto the tray, set the temperature at 160, and the timer for 8 hours. Check drying progress every 4 hours in the beginning. You want the oranges to be firm inside. Look closely at the center flesh of the fruit. If it looks full and is soft when you press on it then it needs to be dehydrated longer.
After the original 8 hours, I noticed that some of the oranges were completely dried but the ones in the back still had some soft flesh parts. I moved those orange slices towards the front of the trays and dehydrated them for another 6 hours.
It’s better to dehydrate them a little longer rather than have them get moldy because they are too wet.
Some dehydrators do not have a heat setting. Place the oranges on the tray and turn it on. Check them every 3-4 hours to check on the dryness of the oranges.
Don’t have a dehydrator? No problem!
You can also easily dry them in an oven. Place cut oranges in a single layer on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Place in a preheated oven at 200 degrees Fahrenheit and bake for 2-4 hours or until completely dry. The time will vary depending on the thickness of your orange slices.
I LOVE how pretty these dehydrated oranges are! Besides being turned into Christmas garland and ornaments, there are a lot of other ways you can use these dehydrated oranges. They can be added to a punch bowl, used to decorate presents, tie to a teabag, or added to stovetop potpourri. A quick search on Pinterest will yield you a bunch of beautiful ways to use them up (if you have extras).
Head over to my Old Fashioned Christmas Ideas page on Pinterest and Follow me.
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Pop White Popcorn & Assemble Cranberries
Items Needed to Make Christmas Garland
I used:
- white popped popcorn (I used Orville Redenbacher’s Original Gourmet White Popcorn Kernels)
- whole fresh cranberries
- dried oranges
- white sewing thread
- a sewing needle (the larger the head the better)
Assemble the Old Fashioned Christmas Popcorn Garland with Dried Oranges & Cranberries
The pattern I chose was 1 orange slice on the end, 6 pieces of white popcorn, one cranberry sewn through the middle, 6 pieces of white popcorn, 1 orange slice, and repeat.
Start out by threading the needle and pulling the tail down 10 inches or so. I found that the kids were always losing the end of the string in their needles. I always started by stringing an orange slice first. Find the prettiest side of the orange (the side you want showing outward) and poke the needle through the pretty side in the corner flesh next to the rind heading to the backside. Pull the needle through, cross over the backside, and exit the orange on the opposite side corner in the flesh.
Next, you will string 6 pieces of white popcorn. Careful for those fingers. I found that day-old popcorn worked better because it wasn’t as breakable.
String a single cranberry the long way (from end to end) and then 6 pieces of white popcorn and an orange slice. Repeat the pattern of 6 pieces of popcorn, 1 cranberry, 6 pieces of popcorn, 1 orange slice until your desired length.
Tip: I started out by keeping my string attached to the roll of thread and would push the orange slices, popcorn, and cranberries down it for as long as I could. When it started to become a pain because of how long it was, I then would tie off the front end with an orange slice off and then move to the other end where the roll of the thread was. I unrolled the thread a few feet, cut it off, and put my sewing need on the other end. I then continued with the pattern but was working from the opposite end.
Tying off the end. I chose to end my garland with the orange slices because they were the strongest thing to tie off from.
Get the whole family involved
All of the kids helped string the popcorn garland, even the 5-year-old. Not only was it fun but it also helped them work on hand-eye coordination and their sewing skills
A Simple Old-Fashioned Yet Perfect Christmas Tree Decoration
My favorite part of this simple popcorn garland with dried oranges and cranberries is how the light shines through the orange slices. It really glows!
This is probably my favorite Christmas Tree that we have had! The garland is so simple yet beautiful and the ornaments from our past fill the tree. It’s really something special!
I hope you enjoyed this post on how to make Old Fashioned Popcorn Christmas Garland with friend oranges & cranberries.
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We’d love to have you follow along with us on our Old-Fashioned Christmas! Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest. I have been adding A LOT of ideas from Pinterest here and hope to squeeze a few cute projects in this season. Looking for some gift ideas? Check out our Gift Guides.
More Ideas for Celebrating an Old-Fashioned Christmas:
Plan and Celebrate an Old-Fashioned Christmas (Free Planning Sheet)
Throw a Christmas Decorating Party
Make Your Own Old Fashioned Popcorn Christmas Garland with Dried Oranges & Cranberries
Decorate With Nature
Rosettes- A Scandinavian Cookie Tradition
Make Homemade Gifts: Large List of Unique Homemade Gifts
How to Make Beeswax Rolled Candles
This is just one of the many ways we are creating an Old Fashioned Christmas here at our home. Plan & Celebrate Your Own Old-Fashioned Christmas with this FREE PRINTABLE here.
Merry Christmas from our family to yours.
-Lindsay from Life on Misty Acres
Our family loves Kiwi Co Subscription boxes! Read My Honest Review of them here and get $10 off your first-month subscription here!
