Garland of the Year.

December 8, 2012 by bfm | 3 Comments

Do you know how much I L-UH-FFFFF this time of year?  I do, I really do.  Its magical and it makes me smile when I am grumpy (alot) when I see my kids get excited about finding their Elf, going through the box of ornaments talking about what they made, breaking ornaments, staying up late watching cheesy holiday movies and fighting over who has a bigger piece of candy cane in their breakfast cereal. And so on and so on.

And decorating.  We splurged this year purchased the most beautiful, fattest, fluffiest tree $50 or so could get us.  I say we “splurged” because a $50 tree on STX looked like this:

I kid, I kid, but you get the idea.  Our $50 went a lot further this year here in ‘Merica..  And really, people, how do you think Christmas trees even GET to STX, and think about a refrigerated trailer to kind of keep them fresh.  Lots of work goes into Baby Jesus’s birthday.

Where we talking about garland?  I get sidetracked easily.  Remember last year’s book page garland?  One of those things that I thought of last-minute, the kids practiced their stapling skills…and away we went.  Well, this year……….

FABRIC SCRAP GARLAND! Yes!  Where did I get all these fabric scraps, You ask.? Well, for the past 50 years or so, they have been sitting in a drum barrel at the top of the stairs in my Granny’s/Aunt’s/Dad’s childhood home.  Not kidding.  The most incredible treasure of our family’s history in fabric scraps.  Why is this cool to me?  The women in our family made beautiful quilts, saved ALL their fabric from old clothes and sewing and used the scraps to make quilts.  It’s what people did when they didn’t have television, or computers or Target. They sat together as a family and did things together.  Well, at least the women did.  The men were out getting drunk, I assume.  The older members taught the younger members and so on.  They bonded.  The planned.  They nurtured.  All around quilting.

And so, in attempt to keep it cheap, use what we have and teach a little family history to my kids, we have beautiful strips of vintage fabric adorning our tree.  I couldn’t be happier.  I think I may have just started a tradition.

But, that’s not all.  Stay tuned to for the home-made gifts using the massive amounts of scraps.  Can’t discuss now or it will spoil the gifts, but I know the family will love them.

Happy Decorating,

bfm

{and, I will also share with you that our tree skirt is a ripped up petticoat purchased at the nastiest Goodwill ever, I will never go in again.  The Empire State Building ornament was a souviner purchased right after The Fisherman propsed to me at the top, scaring the hell out of a bunch of junior high kids on a field trip.  Ahh, love}

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