The tradition of decoration a fir at Christmas came to Russia from Germany. Peter The Great introduced this custom to the houses of the noble families and a century later sweets and fruits appeared on coniferous trees in every house. The Soviet government transformed the Christmas tree into a New Year’s one because of the ideological causes. As a result, nowadays it is impossible to imagine New year without a decorated spruce in the room. However, what if the New year is coming and you still do not have the tree?
Buy a tree in the nursery
In Dmitrov or Ulyanovsk nurseries you can choose a tree of 50 cm high for 200 rubles. Unlike the forest cutting, such one does not harm the ecosystems because workers of the nursery regularly sow new trees. In The Moscow region a meter-long spruce costs about three or four times cheaper than in Moscow. Cutting down a tree in the forest is illegal and lead to a fine of 3000 rubles or criminal liability. The forests of the Moscow region are patrolled since December 10.
If there is not enough space for an entire tree in the room, you can use spruce branches as a basis and make a garland, wreath, or two-dimensional tree. It depends on your preferences. To make a wall Christmas tree, lay out the branches in a shape of fir and fix them with tape or office buttons. Decorate the tree with garlands, tinsel or balloons, as you would do with the traditional one. Besides the traditional paper snowflakes, you can make Scandinavian garlands or paint papier-mache toys to decorate the Christmas tree. If you want to make a wreath, weave a circle of branches, fixing them on the base with ropes and ribbons. Add cones, beads, and toys to it.
Create a hand-made eco-friendly Christmas tree
Make the main holiday tree on your own from cardboard boxes left over from Packed gifts or old equipment. Also, boxes can be bought in food-stores. It may give them a second life: you can put up the same cardboard Christmas tree for several years in a row. When it becomes redundant or unusable, take it for recycling. Depending on your confidence in the abilities, choose the variant with appropriate difficulty.
Cross Π‘hristmas tree. Initially, draw the details of the future fir tree on the cardboard as shown in the picture below. After cutting out all the details, take the parts of the tree and insert one half into the other. Then place the connected parts in the base. Color the Christmas tree as you like.
Snowflake Christmas tree. It makes almost as the cross but with more details. In this version after cutting the parts of the Christmas tree, they should be glued in the middle with double-sided tape not put onto one another.
Cone shaped Christmas tree. Firstly, you need to make several cones out of A4 sheets. Secondly, connect the parts together with tape or hot glue to make the structure more stable. Putting them together will require a bit of dexterity. A cylinder made of thick cardboard will be suitable as a base.
Pyramid-shaped Christmas tree. This variety is for those who can read drawings. Detailed instructions on how to do it are here. So that the tree can be disassembled and reassembled, fasten the parts with buttons not glue.
Christmas tree for chemists
For this purpose, you will need legs for a laboratory tripod, the tripod itself, flasks and reagents. Before you start, remember the safety precautions and school chemistry course. Attach the legs to the tripod according to the number of flasks. Choose the color of the βballsβ.
The blue color has copper vitriol (Cu(OH) 2) and copper sulfate (CuSO4). Silver chloride (AgCl) will give a white curd precipitate, and aluminum hydroxide (Al (OH)3) β white jelly-like, barium sulfate (BaSO4) β white flake-like. Calcium carbonate (CaCO3) and zinc hydroxide(Zn (OH)2) will also produce white precipitation. Silver bromide (AgBr) and silver iodide (AgI) will make the ball light yellow, and silver phosphate (Ag3PO4) lemon yellow. KMnO4 β high quality potassium permanganate, which will stain the water crimson. Conduct experiments, put the flasks in the paws and decorate the spruce.
By author Elizaveta Stryuchkova