Holly and Boxwood November 18, 2018 @goldenoakfarm

The berries that fell off in a bowl with small holy branches

Last Wednesday my brother stopped by to pick up ingredients for Thanksgiving dinner. He lives in CT and can grow lots of holly and boxwood. I don’t have any here. So he pulled a huge amount out of his car when he got here.

He said he thought there were 3 types of holly and there was a bunch of boxwood. I never got to them as we were doing bacon at the end of the week, then I got sick. Before I got too sick, just after the storm, I went stompin’ in the swamp and cut a bunch of branches of red berries. I only fell once, but fortunately not into the swamp.

So now I had berries branches in addition to holly all over my living room floor. Today I am feeling better, so I tackled the pile. Technically, I’m not supposed to decorate until the day after Thanksgiving, but these would not last that long.

He was right, there were 3 types of holly. One had berries, but just a few, another had the remnants of flowers, and the 3rd was dark green.

I went through my boxes of Christmas materials, but I only found 3 ribbons.

I made the 2 swags that would face the road first, using the gold ribbon cut in half and the holly. My brother said he thought the boxwood would last longer inside. I know the holly doesn’t, not with a wood stove.

Then I made 2 inside swags from the boxwood, using the last 2 ribbons.

I still had a lot of material left, so I made a swag for the garden shed door.

I used the remaining little pieces for a small inside swag of holly.

I still had a lot of berry branches left so I made 2 bunches for inside.

The outside swags hung up:

I cleaned up the mess and put all the berries that had fallen off into a small glass bowl. That was a nice project to do when I’m not back to normal yet.

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