Greens Day

The gathering of holiday greens each year can be a bit of a hassle.  Despite promises to the contrary I have not yet planted any boxwood or holly here for this purpose.  And you cannot make much of an arrangement with all white pine or all spruce, both of which I can scrounge.  I even have some yellow juniper.  But no holly, and little variety.  So, this year, after ordering a box of fresh holly from an eBay seller, I began driving around with a pair of pruners and a plastic bag.

The gas station bordering my office parking lot has a couple of red pines behind it and they have very long course needles.  There are some small scotch pines in the ditch right around the corner here.  And then I was at Wegman's grocery looking through their cut greens when I met my friend Mickey who has a small greenhouse and produce stand.  I confessed to her that I was walking around town with pruning shears in my pocket and she said "oh just go out to the farm.  I cut a Colorado spruce tree for wreaths and I'm done with it.  The butt is laying on the lawn.  Take all you want."

So I ended up with three pine varieties and two spruce varieties, juniper and the mail-order American holly that is loaded with berries.

Over the past few weeks I had staged all the boxes and bowls, equipped them with the necessary oasis or foam blocks, and chosen which set of candles for each arrangement.  I'm telling you, they haven't come up with too many Christmas decorating inventions that can top remote control LED candles!  The funny part is that we discovered last year that every time Tim changes the TV channel, a set of candles turns on or off.

The fake rose hips above, I bought when the autumn florals were on clearance.  I prefer the more muted colors to the standard Christmas red or gold.  Not that I'm short on those.  I brought them in, stuck them in that cream can and I decided I liked it so much just the way it was that I was going to have to use something else for my centerpiece.  I did pull a few berry clumps off the wire stems but refuse to cut the bunches up as planned.  I'll have to remember to watch for more next year,

This year I have a thing for tin.  And I've always liked graters,  This little assortment is actually my favorite ensemble this year.  I have some LED tapers ordered that will fit inside them,  The base is the screen from a cheese mold.  The other part of the cheese mold is holding walnuts

Of course you don't have to use greens everywhere.  Sometimes pine cones do fine on their own,  These tin steamers dress up for the holidays every year.

This Jelke Oleomargarine crate from the 20s was here at this house when I moved in.  It usually stays in the garden shed doing dirty work, but this year I washed and oiled it and brought it in the house.

And of course, the Nabisco cracker box.  This box got fake spruce and juniper limbs that are so realistic I have to look twice to see which I'm using.  Assembling boxes of mixed greens is a surprising amount of work and I feel a bit mangled.  I am not done of course.  I have orange slices drying in the oven and cranberries to string.  And I do have a very nice assortment of greens left but I promised Tim that while I am not completely done decorating, I will refrain from jumping up in the middle of dinner to rearrange something.  For tonight anyway.