Paper snowflakes are a holiday tradition

  I have signed up for a holiday exchange activity, and one of the requirements is to describe one of my family's holiday traditions.
  This is hard for me. We don't do a lot of things that I would think of as traditional. The first thing I thought of was also the first thing my husband said when I asked him: We stay home on Christmas morning and play with our new toys. We seem to have developed a pattern, too, of having a special treat for breakfast: Lucky Charms.
  I don't think this is what the holiday-exchange people are looking for. So now I have an idea that I think qualifies as a holiday tradition. It's something I take for granted, but it could be seen as a traditional activity that not everyone does. We make anatomically correct paper snowflakes.
  Snowflakes actually do come in different shapes, but the most common, and the most iconic, is the six-sided snowflake. To make one, start with a square piece of paper, fold it in half, then fold it into thirds, then in half again.
  I made a worksheet to illustrate this. If you have square origami paper, you can use that. If not, the top picture shows how to bend over the corner of a letter-sized piece of paper to make it square.


Steps for making a six-sided snowflake
1. Fold a square piece of paper in half.
2. This step takes practice. Fold one corner over, making the flap about one-third the size of the whole thing.
3. Fold over the flap on the other side. You can adjust both folds if it doesn't line up nicely.
4. Fold the whole thing in half.
5. Cut off the uneven end.
6. Cut your design, taking care not to cut too far so as to accidentally cut it in half. Note: "Center" marks the center of the snowflake. It's tempting to cut it off, but a real snowflake doesn't have a hole in the middle. Real snowflakes start as a tiny bit of water vapor that freezes around a dust particle. Ice crystals form off this tiny center. That's why I always leave the center in my paper snowflakes.