A Natural Christmas

The shops seem to be full at the moment of glittering, plastic looking balls, tress and other Christmas decorations. While these can, in their own right, brighten up a room and make it look ‘Christmassy’ I have to admit I’m starting to look back towards a natural, traditional Christmas.

This longing for a green Christmas found me in the local woods early on Saturday morning looking for all sorts of plants to clip and merge in to wreaths and other subtle decorations. While I still have a plastic tree, the needles real ones drop aren’t good for cats paws especially when the said cats are as pathetic as mine are, I have added a few natural babbles to it. All I’ve done is glue pine cones together along with long leaves to create stars which look great on a tree or hanging from a wall.

Colourful decorations can be made by picking stems from such plants as dogwood and birch, bound together with gardening wire or florists sub wire. Or why not thread colourful berries together to create a natural tinsel or bead string, all this needs is a bit of patience and you have a natural colourful ornament. The perfect berries for this, in my opinion, are rowan or cotoneaster but any ones you like the look of can go on, one of my friends even includes chillies and cherries!

Instead of babbles why not cluster together small larch cones, nuts or even conkers, glued together these make a striking alternative and add a little something different to your tree.

Of course if you’re not familiar with these plants it can be difficult to find them in your local wood or garden so simply pop along to your local garden centre – as I did Saturday afternoon having spent hours wandering lost around the wood Saturday morning. Not only will they be able to give you some guidance on which plants are which they also have some great suggestions.