Last Christmas, you gave me 90% off a tree skirt. The very next year, I turned it into doll clothing

I LOVE seasonal clearance.  Xmas clearance is some of my favorite.

Now, before you feel the need to point out that I'm Jewish (*gasp*  OMG!  I'm JEWISH?  I completely forgot.  Those sparkly red balls and freakish-looking inflatable santas must have induced some sort of religious convictions amnesia), I will point out that I use the clearance for non-Xmas related things.  There's even a Jewish blog which held a contest last year for the best use of Xmas clearance (if any of my readers remember which site that was, please let me know and I'll add a link).

The (kosher) cake mix I bought, completely with Xmas tree confetti, was used to make Tu B'Shevat cookies.  Nothing says, "Happy Birthday, trees" quite like cookies actually filled with tiny trees.

One of my favorite finds has been tree skirts.  When they go to 90% off, you can get them for less than a dollar.  They work fabulously for dress-up.  My kids use them as hoods, capes, shawls,  skirts, pretty much anything and everything.

One came in particularly handy this week.

My daughters' Girl Scout troop took part in a World Thinking Day celebration.  Each troop was assigned a country.  My girls' troop was given Mongolia.  The traditional clothing there is fascinating, so that was their focus.  They researched and made a board with a brief explanation of the clothing and some pictures.  They also wanted to dress one of their dolls in their version of a del/deel/dell (I can't find any one set spelling) which are worn by both men and women.

However, nearly all of my fabric and craft supplies are packed up and in storage.  After brain-storming, they brought me a felt tree skirt from their dress-up drawer.  We just hot glued the doll in the thing, trimmed it to remotely resemble a dell/del/deel and then added a sash from their existing doll clothes.  There was also a pair of fuzzy boots in their doll clothes.  We found that in the winter, covers made of fur were added to the pointed toe boots.  Woo-freaking-hoo.  We noticed some of the traditional hats looked somewhat similar to berets, so they grabbed their doll's beret and we pinned a tassle on it to copy the look as best we could.

My oldest decided to wear the red wizard robes she made at camp last summer backwards and we pinned a pillow case around her waist so that it resembled a dell/del/deel.  She even matched with Claudia, her doll (named after her favorite character from the Baby-Sitter's Club books.  My daughter specifically asked for that doll for Chanukah because of the resemblance to Claudia).

Claudia and the fashion board.  

Claudia in all her Xmas tree skirt glory

RANDOM FACT O'THE DAY: Did you know that Queen Amidala's costume in The Phantom Menace  was inspired by the fancy traditional Mongolian women's dress? When searching for pictures of the traditional fancy dress, we were all shocked by how true they stayed with Padame's costume.  Take a look at those two pictures from my daughters' display board.

Whoever is in charge of keeping track of geek points
had better make sure I get some for working this in.