Decorating a Tree with Edible Ornaments for Wildlife with 'Night Tree'

I discovered the book "Night Tree" by Eve Bunting last year while searching for winter books at our local library. I found the story so sweet I knew it would become a yearly read! The story follows a family as they head into the forest the night before Christmas to find their tree. Only, their tree isn't their Christmas tree, it is the tree they decorate for the animals every year! Under the light of the moon, the family covers the tree with strings of popcorn and various other edibles and then they sip hot cocoa and sing a couple Christmas carols.

We didn't decide to head into the forest to find a tree to decorate on Christmas Eve, but we were inspired to decorate a tree in our yard for our animal friends! Here are some of the ornaments we made for our tree.

We used cookie cutters to cut slices of bread into fun shapes then spread a thin layer of peanut butter and sprinkled bird seed over the top. I used a needle to poke the thread through the bread and knotted it at the top. **Important: do not use fishing line when making ornaments for wildlife, thread and yarn are much safer options.

Lil C strung a couple pretzels and dried cranberries onto yarn.

This is an alternating pattern of dried cranberries and raisins - we used a needle to string the fruit, just make sure you clean your needle afterwards!