Home for the holidays

Fill your home with the festive scent of citrus and spice to add to the sights, sounds and tastes of your special way of celebrating the holidays.

Decorating colorful, fresh citrus fruit with whole cloves will bring natural scents of the season to the project and for days to come.

You might recognize this simple, traditional craft idea from your childhood, which is reason enough to pass it along to your school-age kids.

So, gather your children, cousins and friends around the kitchen table, and enjoy passing along a fun holiday multi-generational tradition.

Here’s the stuff:

-Fresh, firm citrus fruit such as oranges, clementines, lemons and limes

-Whole cloves

-Ribbon in holiday colors

-Pencil

-Bamboo skewer or knitting needle

-Cinnamon sticks (optional)

Here’s the fun:

Use a pencil to draw a simple design on a piece of fruit.

Poke evenly spaced holes with the skewer or knitting needle into the peeling. Using the pencil design as your guide, insert cloves into the holes, like a “dot to dot” activity.

Decorate the fruit if you wish by crisscrossing colorful ribbon around it, topping it with a loop to hang in a windowsill, on a wreath or from a Christmas tree.

Here are some design ideas to get you started:

ABC’s — Make an alphabet letter on each piece of fruit to form a word when they are lined up next to each other.

For example, spell “JOY,” “PEACE” or your family name. If you have visitors coming to dinner, make a place card by forming the initial of their name, add a bow on top and place the fruit on the center of each plate.

Snowman — Stack a small clementine on top of two oranges, and attach together with toothpicks. Use the whole cloves to create a face on the top clementine and to represent buttons on the center orange.

Tie a ribbon for a scarf and attach sticks for arms, if you wish.

Extra tip: Bundle cinnamon sticks and tie with ribbon.

Add to a bowl of your decorated fruit for an eye-catching table decoration.

Donna Erickson’s award-winning series “Donna’s Day” is airing on public television nationwide. To find more of her creative family recipes and activities, visit www.donnasday.com and link to the new Donna’s Day Facebook fan page. Her latest book is “Donna Erickson’s Fabulous Funstuff for Families.”