Make a Santa Wish List Ornament for Christmas

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Today, I’m showing personalized Christmas ornaments to make with your child’s Santa wish list. These keepsake Christmas ornaments – made with clear Christmas ornaments – will be cherished into your child’s adulthood.

You know who is the best Christmas list maker in the world?

Your kid. And my kid. And your friend’s kid. There is probably no greater thought-provoking challenge for a child than a Santa wish list. The older a kid gets, the more thought goes into a kid’s Christmas list. Kids take the Christmas wish list maker job seriously, folks!

Why not put your little Christmas list maker in charge of creating personalized Christmas ornaments each year? Using their own Christmas wish list ideas, they can make their own awesome Christmas keepsake ornaments.

Saving a Christmas Wish List for Keepsake Ornaments

Surely, at some point I have mentioned how sentimental I am with Christmas ornaments. If a family member, a friend, or a student has ever gifted me a Christmas ornament, it goes on my tree. When we travel, I buy a Christmas ornament from that area. I mark the ornament with a Sharpie to remember the person or the trip. When we decorate our Christmas tree, I think about each person and each trip as I hang the ornaments. I’m a bit mawkish that way.

One of my favorite Christmas to-dos as a mom is sitting down to discuss my girls’ Christmas list for Santa. At six-years-old and four-years-old, my girls have large imaginations in the capabilities of Santa. Last year, Scooter Britches invented a non-existent doll in her mind and described it for Santa. When she was two, she requested Santa bring her a princess toothbrush.

Of course, I don’t want to forget these innocent and sweet ideas of my baby girls. A few years ago, I had some of those clear Christmas ornaments mixed in with our Christmas decor. I didn’t really have any intentions for them, and I’m not sure why I even bought them.

I decided to cut up the girls’ Christmas lists for Santa and try to squeeze them into the little plastic clear Christmas ornaments. I really love how my idea turned out, and I am going to share with you how to do it.

Put Your Child to Work as a Christmas List Maker

The first step is putting your little Christmas list maker to work by having him make a Christmas list on paper. Most likely, this will be something he will have no problem doing. Obviously, if your child is too young to write, you will have him tell you what he wants while you write the list.

As for a Santa wish list for a baby, you will need to modify a baby Christmas list. Perhaps, instead of a Santa wish list, you will write a list of things Santa brought for the baby.

Once a child is of writing age, his handwriting is just as much an important keepsake as his Christmas wish list ideas. If possible, let him do the writing.

The Christmas list has to be written rather small in order to fit. This is especially true if you are adding a Christmas wish list for more than one child onto the same piece of paper. Ideally, I like to have one ornament with both girls’ Christmas lists so I write the Santa wish list especially small. As my girls begin writing their own Santa lists, I may start letting them each have their own ornaments to allow for more writing space. Little kids have big letters, y’all!

Oh, and be sure to write the year and the age of the child on each list!

Sizing the Santa Wish List Paper for Keepsake Ornaments

Of course, getting the paper to nestle into the ball just right is a bit tricky. I just use the plain old 8.5 x 11 size copy paper for my printer. It helps to trim off about two inches (width) of excess paper. Making the piece of paper shorter helps because there is not so much overlap. I’d say the best size of paper to use is no more than about four or five inches high and about six inches across.

Inserting the Paper into the Clear Christmas Ornaments

First, I roll the paper into a thin roll with the words on the outside of the roll. Next, I slide the paper gently into the empty clear ornament. I slide my index finger into the ball and slowly move my finger around in a circular motion to unwind the roll of paper. Sometimes, it takes a couple of tries to get the paper unrolled correctly. It never unwinds itself perfectly. But if I can get it to unwind well enough that the ends meet without covering the words, I am happy.

I have the shatter-proof ornaments which are safer to work with than glass ornaments.

Afterward, I sprinkle in some confetti into the center to help keep the paper in place. Finally, I add a bit of Christmas confetti – the kind you put in gift baskets – and replace the cap on the ornament.

You can see in the next picture that the Christmas list in the 2018 ornament is a bit more crumpled than the others. I probably should have trimmed a tad more off of the paper. Luckily, I can always rewrite the list next year if I am still bothered about it.

Turning Your Child’s Christmas List into a Photo Ornament

Now, one idea that came to me this year was to add a picture of each of my daughters on Christmas morning to the back of each ornament. For instance, the 2018 clear ornament could have the child’s Christmas list on the front and a picture of the child in the back.

You can tweak this idea for other things – a child’s Christmas prayer, a child’s favorite memories of the year, etc. I try to squeeze any cute little Santa-related stories on the paper, like in the photo below.

Each year, I store all the ornaments together when I pack away the Christmas decor. Speaking of Christmas decor storage, be sure to check out my post on decluttering holiday decor for free printables to use along with tips on storing holiday decor year-round.