Homemade Advent Wreath

Christmas is everywhere here! Last week due to Berlitz training, I missed out on gathering fresh greenery in the forest with Margit and her friends. But luckily, I caught up with her on Friday and was able to get a crash course on homemade wreath-making.

Margit came home with about 5 different types of evergreen branches. Beginning with a straw wreath base (found at any local craft store), we cut small, 3-5 inch long pieces of greenery and wrapped them thickly & tighly along the base, securing them with thin metal wire.

The next step was to decorate! Margit and I sat at her kitchen table, Christmas ornaments and decorations sprawled around us, and chose things to adorn our masterpieces. Mine is only one foot in diameter, so I chose small items - miniature cinnamon sticks, pine cones, golden stars, small baubles. Margit had about 3x more "wreathspace" to worth with, so she used ribbon, orange slices, red crab apples, and the fruit of local spruce trees.

Last but not least, we added the candles. It's not common to use pink and purple candles like at home (American Catholics know what I'm talking about); here, you simply buy either 4 red or 4 white candles. I chose white, but dropped one on its head and was forced to replace it with a big awkward gold thing. It was the only half-way decent solution. Oh well, it's my first year.

Here is the finished product!