My sister and I just returned from Oregon where we were visiting family. It snowed just enough to look beautiful and feel festive without being enough to interrupt travel. We left right before storms brought inches of snow with the promise and threat of much, much more.
So, here we are snuggled back into our homes in Georgia, where the temperatures are predicted to be 70 on Christmas Day and I know that the only white Christmas I’ll enjoy will be from the white lights and the absolutely beautiful white flowers I brought into the house for decoration.
Jack and I have entertained a lot this holiday season and, to do it as safely as possible, we rented a tent that covered the back patio, essentially making an extension of the house. At first the tent people said a 20′ x 30′ tent wouldn’t fit into the space but I had been out there with a tape measure a dozen times and I knew if they placed it “just so” it would fit! With quiet and gentle (?!) persuasion, I encouraged them to keep trying and it finally fit, more or less perfectly.
A tent is an awkward space to decorate but with lights strung around the top and on the small trees in planters, it looked festive. I picked up large branches, put them in large glass containers and put more lights on them to brighten up the corners.
But of course, it was the flowers, both inside and out that provided the finishing touch. I covered an old iron spiral plant stand with greenery and put pots of flowering cabbage and white violas on it and accented the whole thing with small pots of red kalanchoe.
Inside the house, on the buffet table, I opted for a more sophisticated look and put two dozen white roses beside gold candles and gold wire trees. The look was elegant and beautiful.
Not all white is the same color, of course. Most white flowers are either tinged with pink or yellow or green. Carnations, with their stark white ruffled petals are the exception. For whatever reason, bright red flowers of all types were in short supply locally so I use the ones I could get sparingly and as accents.
I love all the colors of Christmas but perhaps most of all I appreciate the cool, quiet elegance of white, perhaps because it’s the closest I’ll get to celebrating a white Christmas.
I hope that you and your loved ones have a wonderful and safe holiday season. Thank you, as always, for reading this blog. I love writing it. Happy holidays!