Holiday Decorating

with orange slices and linen twine

It was the day the snow was falling. The day the burning candle spilled the scent of evergreen from where it sat on the bookcase shelf. The day I was knitting while listening to an audiobook. The day sausage lentil soup with lots of garlic and sage (snipped from beneath the snow in the garden) simmered on the stove.

It was that day that I dried orange slices for the very first time.

The unplanned serendipity of too many oranges and just one of me became my opportunity - the only way I was going to use them was to preserve them.

I sliced them thin, placed the golden, juicy rounds on parchment-lined cookie sheets, and slid them into a low oven (about 170°F) to slowly dry for the stretch of the snowy day. Every long while, I’d set my knitting aside and pad into the kitchen to stir the soup and flip the oranges. Citrus notes bloomed from the open oven door, blending with the wintery mix of evergreen, garlic, and sage already in the air.

I’m not sure that I ever really have a plan for how I’ll decorate for the winter holidays each year. On a high shelf in the shed is a single box labeled Christmas. Inside are a few dozen mercury balls, a horde of pinecones, a couple strands of copper fairy lights, our stockings, and some tiny wooden ornaments that the boys would to hang on their tiny loft tree when they were young. Beyond the box, I never know.

It’s like the first surprise of the season - I get to see what happens. Sometimes I’ll be inspired by a color (the year I used the widest satin ribbon the color of taffy among the evergreens on our front door wreath), or an idea (the year of stars made from antique wallpaper, sparkled with German glass glitter), or necessity (the year I sewed each person a giant fabric gift bag, stuffed with tissue paper and all their gifts inside, that later became the fabric for the throw pillows on the sofa). I’ll surely be inspired by nature and what I find in my rambles in the wild (like last year’s tree, stuffed full with juniper branches then laced with dill fronds and wrapped in cattail leaf “ribbon”).

This year? It’s still early days, but one thing I do know, there’ll be orange slices, like stained glass coins, dangling from the tree by lengths of linen twine.