Another Look at Winter Decorations

Humans have been pulling materials from the great outdoors for thousands of years, using them for food, fuel, tools, and even for decoration. I love natural decorations and the creativity used to craft them makes them very special.

This year I went to visit my dad again in Virginia and popped over to Williamsburg to see what folks there created. I did a similar post in 2015 from a visit there. While some designs repeat, I found plenty of new ones to photograph. As you might imagine, I especially like the ones that use a lot of native materials.

This first fir wreath includes a bit of native mistletoe.

Simple fir (left) and white pine (right) greenery with a little splash of color. I think the berries on the right are from a type of native deciduous holly like Ilex decidua or Ilex verticillata.

Beautiful native magnolia leaves (left) with pine cones. Berries don't appear to be native. On the right is the decor from the Raleigh Bakery and it includes two ginger cookies plus fir branches, grapevine, and some bittersweet (and hopefully it is the native one which is what early settlers would have had).

Heavy use of native Southern magnolia leaves on this one (left) plus white pine roping. The one on the right is a grapevine wreath with mostly non-native materials (some juniper at the bottom and perhaps native lotus pods) but I loved the fanciful design with antlers.

Grapevine with white pine cones (left) and a splash of color in a tankard. On the right, mostly non-native but the juniper with blue fruits is gorgeous and the oysters would be native.

What appears to be a hasty collection of sticks, pine cones, lotus pods, a few feathers and whatnot. But I like it!