I was so thankful to be graced with another blue sky, warm temperature November day on Monday that hubby suggested I take advantage of it and do a little pine cone pickin’ at Leila Arboretum to use in my Christmas displays. We have lot’s of pine cones on our property but no White Pine Trees and that’s the cone I was looking for.
The Arboretum backs up to the 40 acres we own in an adjacent town so we’re very familiar with it. After shopping that morning for some fixtures for the guest house we stopped off for a bite to eat and then a walk under the pines to collect 3 large bags of these beauties. I think I like the large size of white pine cones and the underneath side of the seed is naturally white, making it look like it’s snow tipped making it even more alluring to me.
The project I have planned is perfect for Grama Red to do, so I think I’ll put her on that task. I’ll take all the fixins over to her place and let her get creative. She’s always looking for a project to keep her busy. Right now she’s working on quilts for Christmas but I know she’ll find the time to help me out.
My goal is to wait until after Thanksgiving to start showing off Christmas things, I hope I can hold out. It seems like we hardly get over one holiday, or we seem to skip over some and move right on to the next. I’m already hearing Christmas music in the stores and we’ve all seen the stores filled with glittery Christmas items. So tell me when do you think it’s appropriate to start decorating for Christmas?
I SO agree with you Dawn that we should enjoy each holiday before rushing on to the next. I understand that lots of bloggers start earlier to share ideas with readers. I don’t mind that, but I won’t begin decorating until after Thanksgiving. I am planning now and gathering and creating things I will use in my decor, but no decorating will be done until Black Friday at the earliest.
Carolyn Im gathering too. Trying to use only natural things that cost nothing. I will get things from around our property to decorate with. Sometimes simple is what works best.
I love pinecones. I recently read at Garden Therapy how to bleach them, so I’ll be giving that a go as soon as I collect some more. I agree that the seasons get rushed too much. Here, the malls are decorated for Christmas and I think it is only Remembrance Day (Nov 11) that stops them playing the Christmas music. You can have too much of a good thing. American Thanksgiving is later than ours and it seems the 2 holidays run into each other.
One daughter has been collecting me acorns as well, so will be using them among the pinecones.
Linda I’ve never heard of bleaching them. I agree the two holidays collide and don’t get their fare share of time recognized. The acorns around me always have little worms in them, what do you do about those?
You can bake them in a slow oven for an hour or so to kill the bugs that might be inside.
Linda I have always baked them to open them up, but didn’t know it killed the bugs, thanks for the tip.
It is tempting to get started on Christmas, but I like to give Thanksgiving its due.
Those pinecones are great.
Carol can you do a real tree and have it last in the heat? I know the heat running in our house sure dries the tree out fast. I keep it watered but it’s still a fire hazard.
Hi Dawn,
I start my holiday decor early not to rush the holidays but to enjoy them. Right after Thanksgiving it is the down hill slide into Christmas and I want to enjoy those days as much as I can. So with my daughter hosting Thanksgiving it gives me some early time to get the decorating done to enjoy the days following Thanksgiving and not feel stressed to get it all done in a short period of time. I wish Thanksgiving and Christmas were not so close together. So I decorate early just to give me peace and less stress to really enjoy the holidays.
Have a great rest of your week. Love the pinecones!
Kris
Kris, I seems to go like a whirlwind and do all my decorating Thanksgiving weekend. One year I decided I wouldn’t even put up a tree but at the last minute, the week before Christmas, I caved. I enjoy all the decor even without a tree, but this year I will do a tree I think it may be the last year my son lives at home. He’s at that age where he’s ready for his own place.
Had you lived in Missouri you could just shop my back yard. The common ground between my subdivision and the
next is lined with a row of white pines. I have them non stop and am blessed with a trillion pine needles that we
raked last Saturday. : – ) Can’t wait to see this project. I tried the bleaching thing last year on them and it did not
turn out at all. Very messy and they never opened back up. Keep me posted Dawn!
Debbie I wish I was near I would definitely take them off your hands. I would like to use pine needles as mulch but it’s not sold around here and that’s very strange Michigan is a big producer of pine trees.
Pretty pinecones and looking forward to see the results from Grama Red. Decorate for Christmas all Thanksgiving weekend. Kathleen in Az
Kathleen that’s the weekend I also do the decorating too, but in blogland they seem to start in July. I only like keeping Christmas decor up until the end of the year, it all seems like dust collectors to me and I’m always ready to undecorate by then.
Dawn, I love the large pine cones, but I use as fire starters. I take all of leftover white and cream colored candles , I melt and dip cones then I take my herbs that I have dried and crumble in a large bowl before cones completely dry I sprinkle over, Rosemary and Thyme are my favorite blend, these make great fire starters and good bowl fillers just to decorate with through Thanksgiving and Christmas and the smell in my home is wonderful.
Joy I used to do that for gifts but always used cinnamon as the scent. I wish we had a fireplace to use them in.