La grande swag

One little Christmas tradition we seem to have created for ourselves, since moving to France, is going out to collect foliage for our Christmas wreath, then returning to make it. I love being out in the open air and creating something beautiful from what we find around ourselves, it provides a real sense of home.

This year my friend was joining us for our greenery search, and after, she wanted to learn how to make her own wreath.

Hunting for the right materials can be a little perilous, but we soon had a good collection to take back. The brightest red berries are always the hardest ones to get to.

With all our greenery arranged around our dining table, I started by refreshing my wreath from last year and showing Sharon how to prepare the base for hers. I’d stripped all the old foliage off and added fresh moss where needed.

Brian wanted to make a swag, to go across the top of the gate. He always goes big, so I did need to give him a bit of a helping hand.

Once we had the moss bases on the wreaths we could start adding on the different pines, ivy, then finally the berries. They were all looking pretty good.

Brian went out to prepare some wire hooks to hang the swag, and put in a loop over the gate for the wreath.

We were all very pleased with the result. I’m actually really loving it against the shabby gate.