New Christmas Garland (with NickMom)

Add it to the list, I know.  November and December are the busiest months of my year between taking advantage of increased blog traffic and all the planning and work that goes into holiday preparations.  NickMom gets how the division of labor usually goes around the holidays.

That’s about accurate, except in my case, I usually lug the Christmas decorations up from the basement myself.  When the urge to put up the tree strikes, I suddenly gain a kind of pine-scented super strength which enables me to carry those overstuffed plastic totes around the house like they were Mylar balloons.

Because it’s Christmas tree decorating time.

I love decorating the tree.  The whole process usually starts earlier in the year with a visit to Bronner’s CHRISTmas Wonderland  where I get inspiration for new decorating ideas, and pick up a few new ornaments.

When it gets time to put up the tree, I blast Christmas music (which I usually don’t do because my husband hates it), and I lovingly unwrap each ornament to be hung on the tree.  We don’t do theme trees, but instead choose to display sentimental ornaments collected over our lives together.  Each year the kids get new ornaments that represent a major milestone in their lives.  It’s all very special.

There is always the problem of garland though.  Too big garland obscures the ornaments, too small or no garland looks dinky.  But then I solved our only Christmas tree problem.  As I was out shopping for craft supplies (because in addition to everything else listed in the graphic above, I also hand-make gifts and Christmas decorations each year), I spotted skeins of adorable white pompom yarn. 

It would be the perfect garland to fit our family’s tree.  I got it home and began to string it on the tree, creating equally spaced scallops all the way up and down the tree.  My kids and I put up all those precious ornaments, one by one.  I stepped back from the tree and… it wasn’t right. 

There was one wonky level of garland that wasn’t spaced the same as the others, and it was making my eye twitch.  I dealt with it over the next few days hoping that I would just get over it.  No such luck.  In a moment of holiday madness, I grabbed one end of my adored pom garland and started tugging, and tugging, and gasping.

The whole tree fell on top of me.  It was like one of those slow-motion made for TV movie scenes.  I knew it was happening, but there was nothing I could do to stop it.

It was totally my fault, so it was my responsibility to clean up the mess (including a few broken ornaments), and start the whole thing over again.  It took me two more tries to get that frickin’ cute garland looped and swooped just the way it should be.

And, when it was done, it was glorious.  Simple and effortless-looking (HA!).

I liked the look of the pom garland so much that I even wrapped some of it around the wreath I put together using the special cinnamon ornaments my mom and I made together with the kids.  I draped some over the baker’s rack in the kitchen.  I used it everywhere!  More!  More!

I had my parents over to our house one night after all the decorating was done.  I sat with my dad on the couch as he gazed at our finished tree.  I was thankful that my dad’s attention to detail would finally appreciate all the work that went into getting the tree just so.

“It’s an interesting garland you have there.”

I explained to him how proud I was for finding a cheap alternative to commercially sold Christmas tree garlands, how I used the same garland around the house to tie all the décor together, how it reminded me of handmade vintage pompom garlands.

He was quiet for a moment, and then he said:  It looks like you strung a bunch of tampons together.

 

 

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Thanks,  Jessica