Dressing the Tiny Greenhouse for the Holidays
This holiday season, I wanted to create a little bit of magic for our 5 year old, who has shown immense compassion, understanding, patience, and love this year. As were still between homes (our small ADU cottage is under construction, and the farmhouse roof is being replaced/restored), I figured that decorating our tiny, mixed-use greenhouse would do the trick:
We’ve long kept all our holiday decor in a vintage suitcase, with the exception of the live tree, and garlands made from discarded clippings, which we get locally.
In celebration of our tiny cottage and the canals, we got one new ornament this year: a green canoe, just like the old one we had when living in Venice.
(Pictured below: A sampling of hand-me-down, add-on, and handmade stocking-stuffers for the kids. They don’t have to be new, pricey or flashy to be exciting for the littles.)
The greenhouse is powered by an extension cord that leads to the main house. There’s one plug-in, multi-strand string of warm, twinkling lights for the tree and stockings, and three battery-powered strands for the garlands. (I use rechargeable AAs, as well as carbon neutral batteries from Better Battery Co.
Here are some of our ornaments, most of which we put on the sprawling garlands, rather than on the little tree. Our tree is decorated with small brass bells, and wooden snowflakes and deer that were intended to be used as gift-topper tags.
We don’t leave the lights on too long so as to minimize the disturbance of wildlife. But when the strands are switched on, they reflect off the angled panes of glass, amplifying the glittering glow.
It’s a happy little place, and I think we’ll make this holiday dressing a yearly event whenever we’re in the States for December. (The farmhouse needs to be further winterized, which is a project we’ll have to tackle later down the road for budgetary reasons.)
(Pictured below: The yearly stocking-stuffers I get for myself.)
Although we are extremely eager to have a house of our own soon — either the farmhouse or the ADU — this special space is certainly making us feel at home for the holidays.
