How to Make Dried Orange Slices for Decoration

Dried orange slices for decoration are the perfect addition to your rustic Christmas tree.

When it comes to what I put on my Christmas tree, I love to keep it simple.  What can I say?   I’m a “less is more” type of girl.  Along with simple, I love a primitive, rustic type of look for Christmas.

I like to imagine myself decorating the way Ma Ingalls would decorate her tree.  I think she would use orange slices.  Or maybe not since that might be a waste of good food that was hard to come by in her day.  But for fun, let’s just pretend she would decorate with orange slices anyway.

I like to keep Christmas costs down but I also like to be creative when I can. Whether it is decorating for Christmas, baking, or buying presents, it’s really important to me that I stay within budget for the holidays.  I don’t want to end the Christmas season with a huge load of debt.  That just doesn’t sound like a relaxing Christmas to me!

Orange slices are a way to add beauty at a very small cost to your Christmas tree.  Plus, if you are like me, as much as you adore clementines when they are in season, you may have overestimated how many your family can eat at one time.  I clearly needed to do something with them before they started to go bad.  That’s why today I am going to show you how to dry orange slices for Christmas decorations.

HOW TO MAKE DRIED ORANGE SLICES FOR DECORATION

First slice your oranges about a centimeter thick.  You want them all to be similar in thickness.

Turn your oven on to a low setting of 150 degrees.  If your oven goes lower than that you can try a lower setting.  Mine only goes as low as 150. 

Place them directly on the rack of your oven.  Do NOT put them on a pan or they will stick and burn and be ruined.  And then Christmas will be ruined.  Okay, maybe that’s a bit of an exaggeration.  However, any mom knows when things go wrong around Christmas everything seems to feel a little worse.  Mostly because we are running on no sleep, lots of sugar from all those Christmas goodies, and copious amounts of caffeine so we can stay up to do everything on our Christmas to-do list.

I let mine “cook” for about 4 hours.  Keep an eye on them because ovens vary and thickness of your oranges will determine how long it will need till it’s fully dried out.

Once it’s dried out you can stick a string through it to hang on your tree.

So simple and so frugal. This is a great idea especially if you don’t have many Christmas ornaments.  We have plenty now that have been given to us over the years, but if you are newly married or just starting out, chances are you may be low in the ornament department.  Pair these oranges with some popcorn and cranberry garland, and you’ve got yourself a gorgeous tree!