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Making the Season Bright

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Shining through: Root through your craft drawer for yarn, glitter, colored tissue paper and white cardboard. It’s time to make a Star of David window ornament; Hanukkah starts Thursday night. Visit www.billybear4kids.com/ holidays/hanukkah/hanukkah.htm for directions as well as other decorating ideas, puzzles and stationery.

Hanging on: When Sindi Schwartz decorates her Laguna Beach home, she searches her garden for rose hip branches and persimmon tree limbs that she hangs from the dining room chandelier. She repeats the natural decor on the fireplace mantel, adding a few “crabby apples.”

Bottling up feelings: “I make a sweet, smooth and syrupy coffee liqueur similar to Kahlua for my friends--about a dozen 750-milliliter bottles. It’s quite an undertaking. I use lots of granulated and brown sugar, instant coffee, vodka, cinnamon sticks and vanilla beans. I pour the mahogany-colored liquid into glass bottles adorned with ribbon and ornaments. I cork the bottles and my husband, Dan, makes the labels.”

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--Penny Elia, Laguna Beach

Helping out: More than 600 children whose parents are in jail will be treated to a party in Anaheim today. Sandi Burns of Friends Outside, a division of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul’s Center for Community Reconciliation in Santa Ana, says, “This is the only party many of these children will have.” To contribute, call (714) 288-5600.

Sweet shapes: Sure, home-baked goodies fill a home with scents of sugar and spice, but if you don’t have time to make sweets from scratch, bakeries are ready to serve. Zov’s Bistro in Tustin has Hanukkah cookies shaped like stars, menorahs and dreidels. The Great Dane Baking Co. in Huntington Beach has raspberry coffee cake sculpted like a candy cane. And Lily’s Bakery in Westminster offers a traditional French Buche Noel, a white cake with mocha filling, rolled into a log and topped with butter-cream frosting and ground chocolate.

Safe and sane: How can you safely mail fragile items? Try nestling them inside a paint can. Many hardware stores sell clean, empty paint cans. Half-gallon metal ones and 5-gallon plastic ones are durable and easy to personalize with stickers, markers or, hey, paint.

Have a holiday tradition, tip or shortcut? Call (714) 966-7883, write Home Design, Los Angeles Times, Orange County edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626 or send e-mail to ocsocalliv@latimes.com. Please include your name and phone number.

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