2012-11-07-Decorating
Seminars@Hadley
Decorating with Nature’s Bounty:
Ideas for Using Natural Elements for
Thanksgiving and Christmas
Presented by
Julie Kay
Moderated by
Dawn Turco
November 11, 2012
Dawn Turco
Good morning and welcome to today’s seminars at Hadley. I’m Dawn Turco and I’ll be moderating today’s seminar which is entitled “Decorating with Nature’s Bounty: Ideas for Using Natural Elements for Thanksgiving and Christmas. We have with us today Julie Kay, long time instructor at Hadley School and in fact, I can tell you that when Julie first came to Hadley she worked in the building here in Illinois, in Winnetka, and Julie and her family bought a Cape Cod in a nearby town and she went to decorating room by room and did such a wonderful job that at one point a while back I tapped her to do a seminar at Hadley on just decorating.
As we were approaching the holiday season, instead of doing a cooking seminar at this time of the year we decided to do one on holiday decorating because it helps us get into the spirit so much and of course, Julie came to mind immediately. Julie has been preparing for us and has quite a bit of information to share and along the way we’ll be having a little fun; I have some holiday quiz questions and a little bit later on I’ll be sharing some safety tips that are good reminders for all of us. That being said, let me release the microphone, Julie, you are up and we are underway.
Julie Kay
This is Julie and I am so excited to be here, thank you so much Dawn. Decorating is something that, like one of you had written, I think it was Deanna that had said that she’s an army brat and so am I, and we moved every years, my mom always decorated, and one of my earliest, earliest memories is we lived in Germany when I was born and they did some stained glass painting on windows and it was just with paint but my mom did religious scenes that she had painted, and it is one of my very, very first memories and just how beautiful that was and how it makes a home. That’s why I’m excited to do this; I hope I don’t bounce around too much because this is one of my favorite topics in the entire world.
When I moved from Illinois to Virginia, I took the master gardener program because I had lived in Texas before and living in Illinois, the plants were very different in Virginia; it has a mix of both of them so it’s very exciting to be in Virginia as far as plant wise but also because of all of the colonial decorations tend to use the greenery. I think that we’ll have fun today. Dawn and I were talking and we knew it was going to be a small group as she said, and so I was kind of wondering what you all wanted to learn; this session is for you as Dawn said, being at a kitchen table type feeling and hear what you want to get out of this seminar.
Would a couple of you like to share? While we wait for you all, and I see Patty has a hand up. One of my students said she was going to join in and I see several of my students here which is fun. She had commented, she says “I’m totally blind, I have never decorated for the holiday.” I was like, “Oh, you’ve got to join in because decorating doesn’t have to be expensive, it does not require anything to be perfect and you can just have fun with it.” Ok, Patty.
Patty Jacobson
Thank you, I love decorating for the holidays and I do a lot. I like fragrance as part of decorating, maybe with some of the pine and stuff like that, maybe you could address that.
Julie Kay
Certainly, that’s a big part of decorating and especially if you are visually impaired I think it’s important for anyone to be setting the mood with fragrance. But the textures and fragrances and so forth need to be included in your decorating and I’m going to try to bring that out as we meet. Deanna.
Deanna
I work for an independent living center and I teach independent living skills and I’m always looking for new things to encourage people to start realizing that just because you have a vision loss issue it doesn’t mean the world ends and that there’s lots of fun things to occupy in your time, life isn’t just sitting on the couch listening to a talking book. It can be as full and as rich as you choose make it and cooking and decorating and making your environment a wonderful place to be is something you can do whether you have vision or not.
Julie Kay
Great, and some people had a hard time hearing you but what Deanna was saying is that she works at an independent living center and working with her consumers to realize how much fun decorating is and to not just be sitting on a couch and in my own words, have what happened to you take charge over your house and your spirit. Hilda wrote that, she said “We had our Thanksgiving in Canada so I would like to know what to use for Christmas besides a tree.” That is a great comment because that was one thing my student had said, she said “I live in a small apartment.” We just moved into a small home and in fact we may not even have a Christmas tree but I’ll be decorating, I assure you.
Deborah said she’d like to learn how to decorate for support group meetings. Sounds fun as far as when you’re entertaining in a way, what can you do and something that could be quick for a meeting and we’ll definitely go over some things like that. Barbara?
Barbara
I want to learn how to decorate simply because what I hate most now is putting it up later on.
Julie Kay
That’s the good thing about decorating with natural elements; they’re quick, they’re easy, and then you throw them away. Roberta?
Roberta
Yes ma’am, I have RP so my blindness came on slowly and when I had a little vision I saw lights, so everything was decorated in lights, everything. Even the outlines of shelves and everything, but now that I’m total, I’m looking forward to being able to decorate differently.
Julie Kay
Great, great; it is still fun to include lights even if you don’t see them for your guests, so that’s neat that you’ve done that in the past. Phyllis wrote “I’d like to learn how to involve blind children assisting with decorating.” To me, the holidays are mostly about children, just having done Halloween and having a two year old granddaughter, is just so much fun. You forget about the magic that happens when you decorate and she took my husband’s hand as said, “Come see what Nana did around the house.” That just of course filled my heart with joy right there.
I will do my best to talk about simple, fragrant, creative, easy decorating for you and Dawn is a fabulous decorator herself and she’s really fun and handy with the jigsaw as far as making things so I’m hoping that Dawn will not only talk about safety but raise a hand when she has something to share.
Each state has your cooperative extension office. It’s a great source for information for plants and so forth. One that I got was from the Clemson Cooperative Extension and I’m pretty sure that is Alabama is that right? I’m just going to read a little bit from what they said. “Decorating the house with fresh greenery is one of the oldest winter holiday traditions. Evergreens have been a part of winter festivals in ancient times. Evergreens are used to represent everlasting life and hope for the return of spring. Southerners have been decorating with greenery since colonial days although the custom was not common in the northern United States until the 1800’s. Churches were decorated elaborately with garlands of holly, ivy, mountain floral, and mistletoe hung from the roof, the walls, the pew, pulpit, and sometimes the altar. Lavender, rose petals, and herbs such as rosemary and bay were scattered for scent. Homes were decorated in a simpler fashion with greenery and boughs in the window frames and holly sprigs stuck the glass with wax. Today, decorating for the holidays with fresh greenery is more prevalent than ever. Greenery such as cedar, ivy, pine and holly add a fresh look and natural scent to our homes.”
One thing when I moved here and took that master gardening class and people have accused me of being too organized and sometimes that’s true, but one thing that I wanted to do is grow my own greenery. I know that some of you live in apartments and I’m going to talk about other sources where to get greenery, but one thing to do is plant your own. What I did when we moved into our old house, and now I’m missing it, and I’ll be in the situation of people in apartments; I don’t have plants right now, but I planted Virginia Pine, I planted holly; I especially like Buford Holly, I planted ivy, I planted Boxwood, and I planted a huge magnolia tree. I also planted nandina, which is a plant that has beautiful berries, it’s part of the bamboo family. It grows really fast but it has beautiful berries.
I also planted red twig dogwood and it has these beautiful straight sticks that are red that all you have to do is cut them and put them in a vase and then you have a beautiful centerpiece. I’ll be talking about those things but before going into different decorating ideas, I want to talk about where you can get your natural materials. One is to ask neighbors, family, friends if they have hydrangea growing during the summer time, ask them if you can cut some and dry them because then what you can do is you can either use them as they are when they’re dried because they’re a beautiful flower, or you can spray paint them gold or silver.
What my husband and I have always done is we’ve gone to Christmas tree stands. Once they start selling the Christmas trees they usually cut off the bottom boughs and then they throw them in a pile to be thrown away. I am very nervy and I go up and I ask, “Can I have your trash?” I go through it and pick out the boughs so they will usually have furs, they’ll have cedars, they’ll have pine trees; spruce trees, blue spruce is especially attractive because of its color because it’s not a traditional green, it has a blue tint to it so when you mix it in with other greens it has a much richer look.
Neighborhood nurseries have things already made such as garlands, wreaths, sometimes they will sell to you any greenery that you want. You can also go to flower shops and you can ask ahead of time if they will order something that you’re interested in. This month in Country Living, and like Dawn, I have paperwork everywhere, but in the November Country Living magazine it talks about going out on a limb, less is expected than flowers, branches yield major drama with minimal effort.
They talked about florists getting pomegranates for you or crab apple, and these are just branches. Crab apple branches, fig branches, chestnut branches, olives or forsythia, even Asian pears. They were saying just go to your florist and ask for branches and they cost anywhere between $3.00 and $15.00 a limb and you only need two or three. So, they’re just saying take those branches, stick them in a beautiful vase; if the vase is light weight be sure to add rocks or something to the bottom so that it won’t tip over. That’s a real simple idea there.
One thing about being in the south that many of you will be able to relate to is there’s a lot of decorating workshops. Even if you can’t see what’s going on at the workshop you will be amazed at how much you will pick up and here they have a lot of hands on workshops so you can just get with the person ahead of time and ask them what kind of adaptations they’ll need and probably you won’t need any. You may want some hands on help but that’s what they do at these workshops anyway; they go around and help everyone.
So anyway, that will kind of help you get some ideas as far as where to get your materials. If you do have a yard, I highly recommend planting those types of plants so that you’re ready when the winter holiday comes. I’m very fortunate that my husband works at a University. They do a wonderful decorating session on decorating with natural elements every first Saturday of December and the landscaping group cuts tons and tons of branches for her and they also cut some for me, so I’m real fortunate. If you have a local college, you can ask, because they need to trim out and thin out and they’re usually very willing to cut something for you.
I’m going to stop right here for two things; one to see if anybody has any questions or ideas of their own about gathering up natural elements and then I’d also like Dawn, she put together some really fun quiz questions. Any questions first?
Patty Jacobson
One thing I’ve heard of is just getting some pretty leaves that have fallen; this might be more for fall decorations, not so much for Christmas, but scattering them on the table where you might be having guests and that looks pretty.
Julie Kay
Absolutely, foraging in the forest is a great idea. Pine cones; I love to use pine cones. I usually will put them in a shallow bowl, a bowl that’s more scooping, and put pine cones in it with some sprigs of pine or spruce or a combination and then cuttings of holly that I just stick in there. I like bows, so I will have a bow made at Michael’s or A.C. Moore and then stick it in there. That makes a beautiful display. So when you’re taking about decorating for a support group, that is so easy because you can carry everything with you, you can throw it together in about a minute and it looks fabulous. You’ll have some fragrance too if you’re using pine. Thank you so much Patty. Dawn?
Dawn Turco
Alright, I’m looking at my quiz questions and I’m sorry Canadians, but I’m going to ask a couple U.S. based Thanksgiving questions but we’ll get to something more universal as we move along. Here’s what you do. I’m going to give you the quiz question and an A, B, or C answer. All you need to do is put A, B, or C in the text box and press “Enter” and we’ll see what the thoughts are on this first one.
In 1941, The U.S. Congress passed a resolution making Thanksgiving Day the fourth Thursday of November rather than the last. What was the purpose for the change? A: To avoid potential snowstorms in the north, B: To avoid heavy rains in the south, or C: To extend the Christmas shopping season. We have a couple of bold people, there you go, it seems to be universal. The correct answer is “C”. One more on Thanksgiving.
Which U.S. president established Thanksgiving as an annual holiday? A: George Washington, B: Abraham Lincoln or C: Franklin D. Roosevelt? People are thinking about that one. I was using these president questions for those of you don’t know Julie as our government and history teacher here at Hadley too, so I thought she would enjoy this. The answer is George Washington and he did it 1789, but it didn’t become an annual holiday until Abraham Lincoln issued his Thanksgiving Proclamation in 1863.
I’ll probably let go of Thanksgiving questions and move on next time, Julie, the mic is back with you.
Julie Kay
Thank you Dawn, that was very fun, very fun. It’s not too early to think about next year’s Thanksgiving for those Canadians and for those of us who will be celebrating in a very short time. I went online and looked at different resources for ideas for Thanksgiving; these are fun things, these are things you can do with children, these are things that are simple, these are things that at independent living centers people can do, and some of them involve fragrance, so I’m hoping to meet everybody’s needs here.
First, when you’re looking at the Thanksgiving table, I don’t know about you but I really like that turkey being in the middle of the table. Going back to what Country Living was saying, this was something that I had already listed, was the branches of different trees. It could be a branch that still has some beautiful leaves on it. You could have branches that have berries and leaves and take out all of the leaves so that you’re just showing the berries; it’s a very crisp look.
Again, the idea is to put the branches into a vase or a container. One thing that I think is really nice is those old stoneware jugs or stoneware containers that you can get at antique stores or in barns or whatever. You just put the put the tree branches in the middle of the table and it’s beautiful.