— whollyKao

flower bouquet ornaments

You start off the Christmas season by blasting the All I Want for Christmas station on Pandora. Then you get a peppermint hot chocolate from Starbucks. Maybe you watch Elf or Love Actually next.

Then you get a tree, and realize that yes, ‘tis the season. We got our tree last weekend. And yes, it’s a real one. Last year was Jeff’s first time to have a live one, and he was skeptical. Rightly so, because he has friends here in Texas who found a nest of praying mantis hatching in their tree. yikes! So that is why we got our tree in Tulsa last year.

This year, we just went to our local Home Depot and prayed for no bugs. Our tree had what looked like wilted bird’s nest in it, but there were no creepy crawlies. Thank God.

Home Depot had 3 kinds: Douglas, Noble, and Fraser firs. I won’t get into the wiki history of each kind of tree. You can read more about that on the National Christmas Tree Association’s website here.

Choosing a tree was a slight feat. I’d grown up getting real ones, but we always got the same kind. So I didn’t really know the difference between the types. Each has its own personality, with differing needle shape and density.

You can study the branches (or read the tag on the tree!) to find out the difference:

Douglas firs have long thin needles. A Fraser has short needles with pointy tips, while the Noble’s short needles have rounded tips.

We got a Fraser and noticed that the it was a lot heftier than the other trees. The needles were more packed in (which is probably why that nest-thing got stuck in the middle). I mean, we did pick the fattest tree we could find, but in general I think Frasers are more dense.

Tree decoration happened last night, which was unfortunately when the Pats played the Jets. That meant I did the majority of the hanging of things, while Jeff strategically placed himself so he could watch the game and catch the lights on the other side of the tree at the same time.

It was fun putting on the tree skirt that my friend Ashley had sewed for us as a wedding present. We also took the ornaments I made last year. These are what I’d like to call ‘repurposed wedding-flower ornaments.’ I had saved flowers from our wedding and wasn’t quite sure what to do with them.

This is what they looked like in all their glory.

So sure, why not put them in some glass ornaments. Then at least we can keep them around for a while.

I cluttered the work table for an afternoon

and ended up with these.

They have dried lavender (also left over from the wedding) at the bottom, and some blue hydrangeas and some orange flower on top of them. It was tricky to stuff the orange flower inside. You have to smoosh it together to get it inside the ornament, and then use something to reopen the flower once it’s inside. It’s like the process of putting a ship in a bottle…not that I’ve ever had to do that.

These ornaments are nice because they hold some sentimental value. And they aren’t as cheezy as the stuff we made back in grade school (you know what I’m talking about!)