Sleigh scene Christmas cards

This year's Christmas cards for my family are based on one of our family traditions - the sleigh scene.

The Santa and reindeer are ornaments that my parents probably bought in the 1970s, and look like they are of Chinese or Japanese origin. The robins joined the scene when my mum made them in the early 1980s, and they sit in a sleigh made from a basket. Each pom-pom robin has its own cheeky personality. My mum used to fill the sleigh with sweets (often from the (now much missed) pic-n-mix at Woolworths). Each sweet would be wrapped up and have a ribbon attached to it, and we would have to grab a ribbon to choose our sweet. Finally, Mum made the snowman to join the gang a few years ago.

When I left home, I had to start my own collection of ornaments for my own sleigh scene. I have a ceramic Santa and penguin, a cuddly reindeer given to me by my friend Katrina, some robins (made by Mum of course) sitting on little wooden sledges, a little wooden Christmas tree, two snowmen (also made by Mum). This year I also added a toy soldier and Finnish doll which I had found in charity shops.

In order to make the cards, I needed to get some photos of the sleigh scene as I didn't have any good enough photos to work from. Luckily I was able to surreptitiously take some photos a few weeks ago, but that didn't leave me much time to make the cards. I usually start them in October!

I made the cards so that they could be displayed together as a continuous scene. Before I assembled the cards I scanned the various elements arranged against a sheet of paper - I may use this design for some of next year's printed cards (yes, I'm thinking that far ahead!).