“Every year, we put up a star during Christmas time and this time, I thought of doing something different. Being an artisan who makes products from palm leaves, I went ahead a made a star out of palm leaves. It took almost one week to create the ‘perfect’ star. After seeing the picture of the star on social media, my friends started asking details about it. I got a lot of orders for the palm leaf star,” Anto tells us. The craftsman says that it takes four hours to make a star. “I wanted to make more Christmas tree decorations with palm leaves. It is all trial and error method; let’s see how it goes.” 

A Christmas tree is incomplete with decorations like ornate balls, Santa Claus, bells and so on. To promote sustainability, Nitin Vas, who runs the venture Paper Seed, has developed eco-friendly Christmas tree decorative pieces. “We have made the Christmas tree decorations from recycled paper. The colour painted on the decor items are water-soluble. Even if you want to discard them, the materials don’t cause any harm to the environment. Our idea is to encourage people to go green this Christmas. After the pandemic, many are switching to sustainable ways of living,” says Nitin. The entrepreneur points out that every year we import tons of decor items made of plastic. “They might look colourful and beautiful, but such cheap things are harmful to the environment. We have to make a conscious decision when it comes to decorating the tree.” 

Creative Dignity is a pan India volunteer movement that came about as an immediate response to the pandemic to provide relief and rejuvenation to artisans. As a part of the rehabilitation phase, Creative Dignity launched the Karuna dolls. For Christmas, the team has curated a special collection of Karuna dolls. “The dolls in this collection include Maru, Covida, Babua & Babuni, Scrappy doll, Karuna akka, Sureeli, Bhavani, Kaagzi, Miss Karuna and Kathakali. Lambadi women artisans from Sittilingi Valley in Tamil Nadu have made Covida dolls from upcycled fabric. The dolls bring joy with their beautiful smile and spread the message of positivity. Another doll Karuna akka is the sister of Tsunamika dolls. Karuna akka is made out of textiles in forest colours by fisherwomen in six coastal villages near Auroville,” says Sravani of Creative Dignity.