Please Admire My Paper Christmas Stars !

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I can't say when I started making paper stars for the Christmas season. I've grown up with them. My mother learnt to do them when she was a young woman and made them until she died, i.e. for about 60 years. She has made tens of thousands. I'm not so diligent and not so generous. I don't give so many away as a present. But I've also made thousands over the years. The material I use are DIN A 4 ( 210 mm x 297 mm) sheets of firm writing paper. Firm is important. If the paper is too soft, the stars rumple. I cut six strips out of a sheet of paper, each 21 mm x ~50 mm (one millimetre more or less doesn't matter). A strip is folded five times until I have a kind of concertina. Then I take one fold between the fingers of my left hand and cut out a tip with a tiny pair of scissors in my right hand. I leave some paper standing and cut out some. All in all I have three different patterns. Can't I cut two or three tips together so that I'd finish more quickly? No, that's not possible. One tip is enough. The scissors I use are not nail scissors with slightly curved blades. It's possible to use them but cutting is more difficult with them. My scissors are so-called skin scissors. The blades are straight. When I've cut all the tips (you can count the number in the pic at the top), I take a white thread and a very thin needle and sew them together. The needle can only go through one tip at a time, so again no rushing here. One has to do this carefully in order not to destroy the star which by now has become quite a delicate thingy. Why do I only make white paper stars? Wouldn't golden stars also look nice or even nicer? Firstly I think that, no, they wouldn't and secondly, there is no appropriate golden paper on the market. At least not in Germany. I can only get slightly metallic golden paper. It rumples when I only look at it. Surprisingly, the stars made of firm writing paper are quite robust. They last for many years. Over time they become a bit yellowish which one only notices if one puts new ones beside them. I know that the stars last a long time because I see them occasionally when I visit friends. Two weeks ago I visited a friend who'd decorated her house for the advent season. I didn't remember ever giving her some of my stars, but saw some on a fir tree twig on a window sill. Other friends have them on their Christmas trees. I've written several posts on Christmassy topics which may convey the notion that I'm a committed Christmas buff. I'm not. I'm neutral regarding Christmas. Celebrating it or not celebrating it doesn't matter to me. I've analysed this attitude and have come to the conclusion that I suffered from a Christmas overkill when I was a child. We lived near the area where all the Christmas figures are made, namely in the south east corner of Germany. There's a small town, Seiffen, which lives on Christmas paraphernalia. There's even a trade school for woodcarvers. My mother had a friend whose family produced these things. We had them all: angles and miners (the area was famous for silver mining) as candle holders, whole angel orchestras, turning pyramids powered by the warm air rising from candles, incense burner figurines, nativity sets. Name it, we had it. Why do I make my paper stars then? Well, this is a nostalgic act. While folding, cutting and sewing them, I think of my mother and that my stars look better than hers, heehee. She was perfect with needle and thread but not so much with paper. With me it's the other way round. Moreover, it's nice to be capable of producing something people love you for, isn't it?