Another Homemade Wreath

We decorated the house for Christmas, inside and out, on Thanksgiving weekend as we usually do.  Hmmm...  well, sometimes we do the outside of the house the weekend before Thanksgiving especially if the weather is unseasonably warm but this year we decorated both inside and outside on Thanksgiving weekend so everything was done over the long Thanksgiving weekend.

We usually have a few downed fir branches around the house by the time we decorate so that provides plenty of boughs available to make a large wreath for our front door.  This year, however, we didn't have a single downed branch nor did we have any that needed pruning so we purchased a small wreath instead.  We lose so many branches due to storms that I didn't want to unnecessarily cut down additional branches and especially not for one wreath.

We hang small wreaths on all the windows as well as the kids' playhouse and our trash shed and that always looks nice but we like to put a large three foot wreath on the front door.  We don't use that front door in the colder months and, actually, we place the Christmas tree just inside that front door in our living room so we physically cannot use the front door anyway.  Putting a large wreath on a door that isn't used for the season does not cause any access problems and it looks nice anyway.

When we hung one of the store-bought small wreaths on the front door this year, we were not pleased with this new arrangement.  That small wreath looked almost ridiculous!  It's like putting a tiny hat on a big head.  Those smaller wreaths look great on the smaller windows but they look ridiculous on our largest door.  We had no choice this year, however, since we had no boughs lying around and had no branches to prune.

Then we had a winter storm that knocked out power a week or two ago...  then another storm the other day...  we quickly had so many downed fir branches that we could no longer see the ground under the tree!  Now we had enough boughs to make a big wreath and to fill our planters and window boxes with boughs.  

Here is a closer photo of the big homemade wreath shot during daylight...

Below is the garden window over our kitchen sink that Sheila decorates each year.  She creates a little winter scene with three decorated Christmas trees, some snow (white batting), and some figurines in this garden window...

Below is a photo of the kids' playhouse with the outdoor kitchen behind the playhouse...

I still need to get more photos of the decorations inside the house.  That will have to be for another blog entry.  I'm glad I had an opportunity to make a large wreath for our front door though...   It really looks great!