entertaining

december 97

As I write this it is only two days past our Thanksgiving feast, but already the house smells and looks like Christmas. I don't recall ever starting my decorating this early, but since my two year old granddaughter is visiting, I became inspired. Each time I decorated another table or room in the house with items that are traditionally symbolic of the season, she would exclaim, "Christmas, look, Grandma's got Christmas!" We'd put on her Christmas Sing-a-Long tape and while her Disney friends taught her how to sing "Deck The Halls With Boughs Of Holly..." (her singing was particularly cherubic on the "Fa~la~la~la~la~la~la~la~la"), she and I filled the house with the scents, sounds, and sights of Christmas.

One of the most wonderful aspects of the season is the delightful smells that fill every room of the house. Fill a pretty container (we used an antique cranberry glass bowl handed down from my grandmother) with spicy potpourri. Ours included dried oranges, apples, cloves, whole nutmeg and allspice, and fragrant cardamon seeds. Rub a bit of pine oil onto the unlit bulbs of table lamps -- when they are turned on the scent slowly fills the room. Stud oranges, lemons, and apples with whole cloves (an excellent task for a small child) for pomander balls. Roll the pomander ball in orrisroot (available at an herb shop and some garden centers) and your choice of spices: powdered nutmeg, allspice, or cinnamon. Let the pomanders dry at room temperature for two weeks. Tie with a ribbon, finishing with a bow, or wrap in nylon netting. Group several pomanders in a bowl with small branches of pine, cedar or other evergreens, or hang on the tree. If you have a fireplace, toss a few cinnamon sticks onto the fire. Place a small pot of simmering potpourri (you can make you own with whole cloves, whole allspice, and cinnamon sticks) on the back burner of the kitchen stove (or woodstove). Bring out every candle stick you have stashed away and fill them with candles of assorted sizes in the colors and scents of the season.

Drape the fireplace mantel with garlands of pine, balsam, and spruce, studded with miniature lights and velvet ribbon and giant bow. A Christmas wreath, its circle shape symbolizing eternal peace and joy, is formed out of dried grape vines and decorated with pheasant feathers, gilded French ribbon, and a golden French horn.

A giant wreath (made by fastening evergreen boughs to a wire frame that is 12 feet in diameter) will soon hang on the front of the house -- this year lit with hundreds of small red chile pepper lights to cheer everyone who passes by.

A find at my local green house is a rosemary trained into a topiary ring. Rosemary, the herb of remembrance, is so appropriate to include in your Christmas decorating. I often send a snippet of rosemary from my garden in my Christmas cards and notes. It was one of the native herbs present at the birth of Christ, often referred as the Christmas herbs (chamomile, horehound, thyme, sweet woodruff, lavender, and rosemary). The first four herbs, according to manger legends, were mixed with sweet grasses for the Jesus' crèche. It is said that Mary draped her wash over the lavender and rosemary plants growing nearby. The lavender, previously an unscented herb, was given its lovely fragrance from the Babe's swaddling clothes, and Mary's cloak changed the rosemary's blossom from white to blue.

Beribboned baskets and bowls of ceramic apples, glass ornaments, and poinsettias adorn every available table with a special basket of white poinsettias adorning the tile entryway. Your local greenhouse, florist, craft shop, or discount store will have all the makings that you'll need to make your house look, smell, and feel like Christmas. Warm your holidays with some simple decorations of the season. If possible, do it with and through the eyes of a small child (if one isn't in residence, borrow a neighbor's for a few hours). I can guarantee your thoughts will be shifted from the "humdrum, hustle and bustle of (commercialism) too many things to do in too little time" back to the true spirit of Christmas.