So as most of you know, I’m not one to sit around with nothing to do, so I’ve been making myself useful in the lead up to Christmas at a local florist shop in town. Here are my main learnings from the shop so far:
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| Dozen Red Roses- Jackson Style! |
- - No shop in Jackson is complete without a shop
dog! Ours is called Jack and he welcomes every customer at the door with a
wagging tail!
- - The way that flowers are designed here is very
different from what I’m used to back home, hand tied bouquets are almost unheard
of, and instead, our main business is short stemmed arrangements in mason jars
or short vases. This means that no effort is required to unwrap the flowers or
arrange them in a vase on receiving them!
- - It’s very common here in Jackson for people to
leave their houses unlocked, and when out, people are happy for us to enter
their house and leave the flowers on a table for when they return!
- Presentation is everything! My gift wrapping
skills are fast improving, and here ribbons are used on everything, from
arrangements, to gift boxes, to wreaths. I’ve been rubber stamping gift bags (childhood memories!) and taping ferns onto presents. Let me tell you, we do gift wrapping
in style!
So in the last few weeks it’s been Christmas overload. I’ve
unpackaged and ‘ribboned’ about 60 magnolia wreaths that were then shipped off
to clients all over the US. I’ve spent several days with my hands in soil
potting up amaryllis and paperwhites, and I’ve been merchandising the store as
deliveries of different Christmas gifts just keep on arriving. Within 2 weeks
of working at the store I’m on first-name terms with the local Fedex driver!
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| Plenty of space for Santa down that chimney |
I’ve also had the
opportunity to work on some larger festive projects, as we’re often called on
to provide decorations for local shops and businesses. We also spent a few days
at a beautiful home installing their Christmas decorations. Just to give you
some idea, the Christmas tree took 8 sets of lights and I couldn’t reach the
top, even when using a step ladder. My favourite part was decorating their
enormous fireplace with these beautiful pines and ilex berries- even if I did
have a slight allergic reaction to the foliage- I’m allergic to Christmas it
turns out!
The weather here is definitely causing more challenges, one
of which was when I spent
probably the coldest day of December wiring pine cones onto a garland outside
one of the shops in town. At -20c I could only last about 5 minutes at a time
with my gloves off, thank goodness it’s got a bit milder in the last week and
2c feels almost tropical now!
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| proud forager! |
Enough about work, but sticking with the tree theme, here’s
a picture of me with our Christmas tree after me and a friend drove into the
forest and hiked to find our own perfect trees whilst both our husbands were
away. I would love to be able to say that I cut it down myself, but in fact, all
hail my lovely friend Joanna for being brave enough to use a chain saw! I’m
pretty proud of our girly adventure and our little tree is the perfect size for
our mini condo!
Most festive antics to follow soon…
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