Torn Paper Holly Craft {Double Fail}

We recently read The Very Snowy Christmas by Diana Hendry.  Little Mouse goes out in search of holly on Christmas Eve.  On the way he encounters pieces of the sky falling (snow), a strange monster (his reflection), something invisible chasing him (his own paw prints), and a huge white mouse staring at him (a snow mouse built by Big Mouse).  When Big Mouse finally manages to calm Little Mouse, Little Mouse finds that he actually enjoys playing in the snow and it's a perfect Christmas Eve after all.

The kids were curious about the holly and I realized we only have one piece of holiday decor that contains it in the entire house...

I led them to the basement, which my husband has decorated with dead fish, pool ball clocks, and Rainforest Cafe shot glasses.  He also decorates for Christmas with stuff he has from childhood.  Which is why we found this in a place of honor on the jukebox:

Have you ever in your life seen an uglier Christmas decoration?

Can you imagine hearing the prancing and pawing of these little hooves on your roof this Christmas Eve?

Obviously, I couldn't allow this to be my kids' only experience with holly.  In an attempt to undo the damage I had done, we made some torn paper holly.  We ripped green paper into chunks, glued it down and added red berries with a bingo marker.

Hmmm..I'm not so sure this holly craft was a good idea either.

My final effort to encourage positive, Christmassy associations of holly for my children involved my husband's Christmas favorite.  Every year, his sister makes a batch of these Christmas Wreaths just for him and actually takes the time to form them correctly.  If you want to see what they're supposed to look like you'll have to click the link, because I plop mine in a big blob on waxed paper and call them Holly Bushes.

The kids loved them, except for the Red Hots, which they picked off and scattered around the floor, so I'm going to call my final attempt to teach them about holly a success.