Handmade Holiday Memories to Last a Lifetime or Two
Before I married, I had a roommate named Tom who was an excellent artist and craftsman, a fellow who added more taste and style to our place than one normally would expect to find in an apartment with two bachelors.
We shared living space for little more than a year but when Christmas approached, he suggested that we have a tree, fully decorated. I was somewhat surprised, even resistant to such an idea, but he insisted. (I was not what you would call domestic when I was young.) Because he was really into crafts, Tom suggested that we make our own ornaments. I was definitely not interested in that prospect, so I suggested that he make the ornaments and I buy the tree.
Since he worked in the garment district, he had access to shops where he bought spools of ribbons, many kinds of different glass beads, sequins, buttons and feather plumes. With a supply of different sized Styrofoam balls and lots of straight pins, he had assembled all the makings of a home industry for ornaments. As artistic as he was, he crafted ornaments that were indeed sensational. Impressed by his artistry, I thought I’d try my hand at it and must confess, while I’m not at all crafts oriented, I enjoyed it.
When I moved out, I didn’t get custody of the handmade Christmas balls, but soon after I was able to bring the concept to my wife and, as newlyweds, we had our first project to share.
In the days before A.C. Moore and Michael’s, not to mention Martha Stewart, the place to get the wildest stuff for ornamental projects was in Manhattan’s hat district, west of Fifth Avenue on 38th Street. On my way home from work each day, I’d pass buy interesting decorations when women still wore hats. Following dinner, my wife and I would sit in the living room, spread out my finds on our large coffee table and get to work.
We came up with the idea of each making one elaborate tree ornament every year throughout our marriage, but we got so much into our new hobby that it became an obsession the first year. The balls became more elaborate as we practiced our skills, and many were themed with their own names.
One ball, completely covered in pink ribbon ruching was named our Baby Girl ball, even though we didn’t have a baby yet. There was the Grace Kelly ball with pale blue and yellow ribbons and pearls; the Swan Lake ball with white ribbons, white feathers and crystals; the Can-Can Girl ball with black and red ribbons, beads and a black feather plume on top; and our real piece de resistance, a large Faberge ball with semi-precious gems all over it, taken from old pieces of jewelry.
The tips of our thumbs developed calluses from pushing in the pins until we got smart and used thimbles to aid our obsession.
We decided it would be safer to buy a large artificial tree so that there would be no threat of sap staining the balls, and we kept producing our little gems until we ran out of space on the tree. We had become Christmas ball addicted.
During that first holiday season, we magnanimously allowed any visitor to select one of our creations for their own trees, and still the tree seemed overladen. The bottom line, however, is that we must have gone overboard on our first year’s attempt because we haven’t made a single ball since. We did, however, add antique and specialty ornaments over the years, as presents to each other.
To this day, couples with whom we are still in contact with from our first year together remind us that they think of us when they take their gifted ball out of its box.
As we have gotten older, our tree has become smaller, and our daughter, who was predated by that pink ribbon ball in her honor, is now the recipient, one by one, of our early Christmas ornament binge.
I guess that’s the kind of stuff newlyweds do together, projects that can be appreciated later in life when there’s time. And, that’s exactly what has happened.
Bill Primavera is a licensed Realtor® affiliated with Coldwell Banker and a marketing practitioner who writes regularly as The Home Guru. For questions or comments about the housing market, or selling or buying a home, he can be reached directly at 914-522-2076.
