Decorating for December

A handmade wreath for sale at The Homestead Garden Center in Williamsburg, VA.

A handmade wreath for sale at The Homestead Garden Center in Williamsburg, VA.

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The first Christmas lights are shining on nearby homes and businesses.  Trees are illuminated with tiny white lights on Duke of Gloucester Street, and white candle lights fill the windows in Williamsburg.  It is such a welcome sight to see them glowing in the early evening twilight.

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The Homestead Garden Center on Saturday offered so many beautiful decorations for Christmas.

The Homestead Garden Center  offers so many beautiful decorations for Christmas.

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And we have begun decorating for the holidays.  Saturday afternoon we visited the Homestead Garden Center to select our tree and admire the gorgeous wreathes the Patton family have created this year.

They not only offered handmade wreathes and garlands, they also had a great selection of fresh greenery for customers making their own evergreen decorations.

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December 1, 2014 christmas 004

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Some friends and I spent Sunday afternoon decorating our community center for Christmas.  We hung wreathes, decorated our gargantuan tree, and filled the windowsills with candles and greenery.

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A friend is well known in our community for her beautiful floral arrangements, and fills our windowsills with fresh Magnolia and white candles..

A friend who  is well loved in our community for her beautiful floral arrangements fills our windowsills with fresh Magnolia and white candles..

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It was a warm and sunny afternoon with light pouring in from the many windows.  What a beautiful day for coming together to decorate!

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We were so appreciative for the good weather!

I used the warm and dry weather today to begin decorating the front of my parents’ home.  We could work at a leisurely pace in perfect comfort.   No frost bitten fingers or toes for us!

I’ve made wreathes and hung lights many years in freezing, wet weather.  This weekend’s warmth has given us all a head start on our decorating plans!

I topped off their bird feeders before I left.  The weather turns back  tomorrow to a more seasonal chill.

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Have you made your wreath yet?  I made two on Saturday evening.  My neighbor donated fresh Magnolia leaves, and I used cedar branches and herbs from our yard.   We brought home the bottom branch trimmings from several Christmas trees, including our own.  The whole house was filled with the most wonderful fragrances as I constructed the first of this season’s wreathes. 

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Rosemary, which goes into all of the evergreen wreathes I construct.

Rosemary, which goes into all of the evergreen wreathes I make.

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I hope you will send me photos of the wreathes you construct this year, or create a post about your own wreathes and send me a link.  I plan to pull all of the photos and links together after December 13, and share them all in a great Christmas blog hop.

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Christmas is in the air, and excitement is building.  Please create something beautiful for the season, and have a great time doing it!

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Photos by Woodland Gnome 2014 

Colonial Williamsburg, 2013

Colonial Williamsburg, 2013

Holiday Wreath Challenge

About woodlandgnome

Lifelong teacher and gardener.

4 responses to “Decorating for December

  1. Lovely images. I plan to start harvesting boxwood today to begin conditioning for the simply boxwood wreaths I make. Enjoy!

    • Our cutting and conditioning began on Saturday. Our GC ladies are in the midst of decorating for the homes tour in CW this coming weekend. I hope you were able to get out in the garden and enjoy this warmish day. We walked CW for photos, and thoroughly enjoyed it 😉 Best wishes, WG

  2. HGC makes beautiful wreaths. Della robbia is big down in the Williamsburg area. It will be interesting to see if there are regional differences in wreaths for your challenge.
    The heavy snow storm brought down three large boughs of balsam fir from the one tree we have on the property that is probably 50′ tall. Fortuitous timing as I can use it for my wreaths and decorating. I’ve made an arrmt. for next to the front door in a wooden bucket and I changed out the fall hanging basket by the porch light to evergreens & accented both with holly berries and bows. Easy to do, the wreath and swag will be a bigger undertaking. I hope to get to it while the milder weather holds. Like you wrote, these chores are much more pleasant in warmer temps!

    • What a great gift your garden has given you, Eliza 😉
      That is a special find, like wind blown mistletoe and running cedar. I hope you’ll post photos of your arrangements. I’ve been away so much since Thursday that I’m way behind on friends’ blogs. I’ll check you yours tomorrow and hope to see what you’ve been creating 😉 I’m glad you’ve had better weather for your decorating. Best wishes, E

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