Christmas Traditions
When Josh was little, I started a cookie swap one week ahead of a Children’s Christmas party, both of which lasted for about five years [upper four pictures]. Everyone baked enough to share so each attendee would go home with a dozen from each. While there are no pictures from the Children’s Party, dressy clothing were required (which the girls loved and the boys kinda hated), sit down dinner of fun food, followed by a gift exchange (of which I kept extra in case someone got a book b/c nobody wants a book at Christmas), followed by dancing and games. They drew names and made Christmas cards for that person and put them in an envelope which I mailed. Two days later, each kid got a handmade Christmas card from someone. It was super fun until they got closer to junior high. Middle school. Yuck.
Jerry and I made the candy canes using a jigsaw and we put on a hinge in the middle so we could fold and store for the next year. In the picture, you can see my Christmas badge and Kyra, our first English labrador, enjoying the snow. Snow is fun and also like dry cleaning for dogs. They come back inside so fresh! [TIP: Some people also put their hooked rugs in dry snow for cleaning, too.]
I also made two gumdrop topiaries which lasted for probably 20 years before I gave up on them. Here’s how:
What You Need:
Large Styrofoam ball (this will be the “canopy” of your topiary)
Wooden dowel, up to 1” thick and approximately 15” long (too long makes it unsteady) but long enough to insert it deep into the foam
Green spray paint
Flower pot or vase (paint first if you need to)
Moss, faux grass, or shredded paper for finishing
Floral foam (available at your local arts and crafts store) (I put in concrete stuff (it’s been too long) with my dowel inserted so it could “set”
Toothpicks (I used hot glue and it lasted for years)
Gumdrops
Ribbon with trails
Instructions:
Spray paint the dowel (and your pot if necessary) and let dry overnight.
Cut a block of floral foam to fit inside the flower pot or vase and place it inside.
Insert the dowel into the center of the Styrofoam ball about half way thru the ball.
Insert the other end of the dowel into the floral foam all the way down so that it touches the bottom of the vase. Make sure the dowel is stable.
Stick a gumdrop onto the ball using a toothpick or hot glue. Work in rows and start at the bottom. Place gumdrops all the way around the ball with hot glue.
Once the Styrofoam ball is completely covered, cover the top of the pot with whatever material you’re using to hide the foam (it may be something different in future years or save it each time).
Tie a bow around the top of the dowel with the ribbon just under the gumball.
Saving it for future use:
Remove the ball and wrap it up very well in butcher wax and then put it in a freezer Zip-Loc bag. Place it in your freezer where it will live until next year. You can save the rest of it anyway you want; I put mine with the holiday decorations. You might end up replacing the floral foam if you don’t use the concrete stuff I used. Freshen the bow each year or change it…voila!
I hosted the Wilton Woods Garden Club in December and made my first flan and brought in wine for the first time. That year, we made boxwood topiaries and my backroom was a mess with water and boxwood! We had a big snow that night and I remember people had trouble getting out of the driveway. The picture taken in the living room with photos in the foreground are the senior ladies who started the club some 30 years earlier. [Dot Gould is white hair with black bow.] They had wine, kicked off their shoes and I caught them chatting in the living room like a sorority reunion. On their way out the door that night, they told me how much fun they had and that they were actually thinking of quitting after all these years, but I was making it fun again.
We also had a terrible freeze and couldn’t remove any decor/lights from outside b/c they were encased in ice for a long time. Other years, it might be 55 degrees and the fruit on my badge would slide down and I would have to get on a ladder and reglue it, but the warmth was ruining everything.
A couple of years later, when I was club president, Dot invited the regional garden club bigwigs to watch me run the meeting and, if they liked me, ask me to serve on the regional board for the National Capital Area Garden Clubs, Inc. I didn’t know I was “trying out” for anything. [Dot Gould is blue dress on the right who started the Wilton Woods Club with whom I became very close.] I declined because I knew I was leaving the neighborhood. I told the ladies I didn’t know “squat” about flower arranging. They said, “We have plenty of that. We don’t have an organizer with fresh ideas.” Boy, we got plenty of that. [By the way, those brown silk pants are size 10.]