Home made Christmas decoration
I’ve been missing that genuine Christmas feeling for the past few years already. I’m not sure if it was for the fact that they begin decorating the town with Christmas trees and lights and everything at the beginning of November, or maybe because we’ve not been having any real winter and snow for Christmas for quite a while now… My thoughts bring me back to those good old times (although not much more than a decade ago) when every Christmas holiday brought unique excitement and the best part of it was making decoration. Making, not buying. Nowadays, everyone buys their stuff, and not only – they change it each year for new stuff, because they want to be trendy and have their home decorated in the colour-of-the-year and things like that. Quite absurd, if you ask me. My grandma still uses her old Xmas tree ornaments, some of them have no less than 40 years. SO WHAT if ornaments are not all of the same color?!
To revive a bit those dear old winter holiday customs, I decided to decorate our home with some simple home made things. Some ideas occurred to me while taking a stroll in the nature back in November. Seeing trees with falling leaves, walnuts lying on the ground and evergreen shrubs, I believe it’s almost impossible not to get inspired. Add to this some citrus, the fruit of the season, a few tools and you have all you need. Check out the following photos to get more idea about what I’m up to these days.
Studding an orange with cloves, using a nail
Have you ever heard of pomanders? Not those, medieval ones, but rather the modern ones – fruits (usually oranges), studded with dried cloves and dried, which can last indefinitely, and then use it to freshen the air (they smell gorgeously) and placed in closets they would provide a nice smell to clothes as well as keep the moths away from them. In some countries they make this kind of pomanders for Christmas as a part of decoration. I’ve never made one before, so when I decided to try it in the beginning of November, I wasn’t quite sure how it would come out. Having in mind, the pomanders take a while to dry (talking bout weeks or even months here), I made only two and let them dry in the air, hanging on a door handle. First two weeks they were doing well, losing its volume progressively and becoming harder each day. But then suddenly, I noticed green-blueish spots spreading over both of pomanders. That certainly wasn’t a good sign and few days later I had to discard them. Unfortunately. I didn’t understand where did it go wrong, since I’d chosen perfectly healthy oranges. Doing a little research on Internet, I found a few advices on preserving the pomanders by rolling them in a mix of ground spices, so I gave the pomanders another try: I made another two, studding them with cloves much closer together – which they say will help them last longer.
Placing cloves close together on the fruit will make it last longer
The best preserve spice is supposed to be orris root. I couldn’t find it so I used a mix of ground cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg and ginger -they are OK, too – which I placed in a paper bag (one for each orange), added an orange and rolled well, so that the spices covered its surface entirely. I’m storing both paper bags in the cupboard and I roll the oranges every day (which I will continue to do until they have dried through). The cupboard and its surroundings smell like gingerbread cookies! So far the oranges are doing fine, but they won’t be dried up for Christmas. However, that’s OK – I learned a lesson and if everything goes well, I intend to make more pomanders next year.
Roll the orange in spice mix to cover its entire surface. Repeat this procedure every day. The orange on this photo isn't covered entirely yet - after a few days when its surface has dried up from clove studding, you won't see the orange color anymore.
There are even more ways of using citruses as decoration. You dry the sliced up oranges and lemons in oven at about 100ºC – 130ºC – depending on the oven (it takes a few hours). Store them in an airy place until using.
Orange and lemon slices, ready to dry in the oven
Dried up orange (left) and lemon slice
Dried citrus slices, wooden skewer and some golden thread - you need no more to create a genuine Christmas decoration at home.
You can hang them on the tree – they make a wonderful contrast with the green of the tree! I haven’t set my Christmas tree yet (I usually don’t do it before 22nd or 23rd of December), so I picked some branches of Boxwood, also called Common Box, which is easily found just about everywhere here.
Boxwood branches, placed in a vase, decorated with dried orange slices
Of course, you can use other evergreen plant for this purpose, if you can’t find this one. And when you’re making a walk in the (coniferous) woods, don’t forget to look for cones – these have always been present in our home for Christmas! Here I painted them golden and I will use them for my table decoration. We also use them to hang on the tree but these are a bit too big for that, I think.
Painting golden some dried spruce cones
There’s are a couple more things you can collect when in the woods: walnuts, bare branches and fallen leaves (preferably smaller) of different shapes. Painted golden (or silver, if you prefer), you can hang them on a thread and stick them on the wall.
I chose golden color but you could use also silver one. Here I'm holding an ivy leaf. Before painting the leaves, you have to dry them well. This is best done by placing the leaves between two sheets of paper which you put in a thick book, and then lade it with something heavy. It takes a couple of weeks or more - depending on the size and type of the leaf.
I hung the golden leaves on the wall. Another option would be to hang them from the window.
The walnuts and branches are waiting to be used for another arranged decoration.
Isn’t it amazing, how many things someone can do himself at home? With a bit of will and imagination, and with the help of natural gifts that you can find anywhere, you can surely make yourself a merrier Christmas!
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I wish i had your patience, i dont think i’ve ever seen any other decorations as beautiful as these ones
Thank you, Maria. You don’t need so very much patience, you know. Maybe it is a bit time consuming. But if you have someone to help you (involving children into this would be a nice idea, too) and if you do it slowly like I did, then it’s not such a big deal.