How to Make a Christingle

You will need:

• 1 orange
• 1 small candle (a birthday cake candle will be fine)
• enough red ribbon to go round an orange with a small overlap (or a bit more for a bow like ours)
• 4 cocktail sticks
• a few sweets or some dried fruit such as raisins or sultanas
• small piece of foil measuring about 4cm by 4cm
• pencil to make a hole in the orange

What you do:

1. Carefully push the pencil into the top of the orange to make a small hole.
2. Put about 3 sweets or dried fruit onto the cocktail sticks.
3. Push the cocktail sticks into the orange in four different directions slightly above the fattest part of the orange and pointing slightly upwards.
4. Take the foil and gently wrap it around the candle at the bottom before firmly wedging the candle into the hole that you had made in the orange. Once in position mould the foil into a shallow cup shape to catch any drips of candle wax.
5. Tie the ribbon round the orange and fasten with a bow, or just overlap the two ends, and secure with a pin to keep it in place.
6. If you want to light the candle make sure a grown-up is there to help you as lighting candles can be dangerous.

Read about the meaning of the Christingle.