Making our Christmas wreath a few weeks ago was one of the reasons I flowed into starting this blog. We did not get a tree this year. Our immediate family is spread from Guam to Colorado and no one was coming home. Putting up a tree, as well as putting it away, takes a lot of energy that we were not motivated to expend. I was feeling guilty, like it was something I was supposed to do. All good people decorate for Christmas right?
I have a cousin in Hilo who makes beautiful Hawaiian wreaths every year. She and her husband get their permit to pick from the ohi'a forests and it is their tradition to make these wreaths for their family and friends. We went to visit my aunties in Hilo the weekend before Christmas and I was inspired by the wreath that my cousin had made for her mom. So I came home determined to make one this year. I was lucky to have spent a weekend with my cousin one year when they were making wreaths and learned how to do it back then, must have been five years ago or more. I haven't made one in a long time.
The plan was to use materials from our yard, get a wreath ring and pins and just do it. I looked online for directions to refresh my memory, and went to Ace to look for the wreath ring and pins. They had stacks of the rings and no pins. The worker there said they ran out and did not think there were any in Kona anywhere. She suggested I use bobby pins. I did go around looking at other stores. My last stop was Home Depot, and the sales person there told me that she had made a wreath a different way. "I wen haku em." I knew how to make a haku lei, though I also had not made one in a long time. But I did decide that was what I was going to do.
From my yard, I picked eucalyptus branches, bay laurel leaves, white bougainvillea, and a bush that had red berries and reddish leaves. I set up my work area on our cool, open, back patio. And I just wen haku em.
For those who do not know what I mean, you make little bundles on top of each other and use raffia to hold the bundle together and to wind the bundles to each other. Next time I make one, I'll take pictures of the process.
It took me a while to figure out how to make it work and I wanted to give up about a quarter of a way through. But I talked myself through it, telling myself that it was holding together, it was growing. I just needed to keep adding to it and persevere. So I listened to myself giving myself encouragement, and I completed it. My mom gave me a nice compliment, but I thought she was just being my mom. When I posted it on Facebook, I got many likes and comments, which validated my efforts and made me proud to have done it.
What does this say about creativity? Sometimes Christmas can be depressing when there are no kids around. Is Christmas really just for kids? For adults, Christmas can be more focused on the reason for the season, which is, of course, the birth of Christ. Creative acts are like giving birth, which is cause to celebrate. Celebrations of Births, especially of the Christ child, is extremely rejuvenating and a wonderful state of mind to have occupying your thoughts at the end of one year and the beginning of another.
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