Monday morning, bright and early, loyal volunteers assembled at The First Lutheran Church of Boston to accept delivery from our friend Pat Riccardi of his fresh balsam wreaths.  We advance order what we call standard size, built on a 12″ ring, and large size, built on a 16″ ring.  There was good news and bad news.  The standard size we ordered were unavailable, but Pat found for us a beautiful batch of thick, fresh, and very well made wreaths assembled on a 14″ ring.  These products were superior, and made exquisite decorated and undecorated wreaths.  The only problem?  People ordering both standard and large wreaths suddenly felt their large wreaths weren’t large enough.  In fact, and even to our eyes, they looked pretty similar.  Variations with manufacturers accounted for this, but we did have to spend some time explaining, and a few customers had to do a bit of trimming if they had a matched pair going on narrow double doors.  On the whole people were very happy with their bonus sized wreaths.  Next year, however, we may have to go back to our 12″ size, and Pat hopes to find a supplier as good as this year’s to provide the wreaths.

We have West Coast website fans who sometimes inquire about the possibility of sending wreaths out there.  We’ve occasionally done a little research on it, but determined the wreath decorations are too fragile to hold up, even with extreme packaging care, and the boxing and shipping costs are astronomical – just not a good idea.  So when a shop in Brussels, Belgium, emailed asking to purchase wreaths to sell in a boutique shop, we said we were flattered but since we don’t ship the idea wouldn’t work.  Incredibly, they persisted, offering to have their international freight company come to pick up the products.  We then had to disclose the small number of wreaths we could allocate to them, and after a few more back and forth emails, including our forwarding of Penny and Ed Cherubino’s wonderful YouTube video of our bow making process (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Od4RWBu6sw)  the matter was dropped.  How much we would have enjoyed saying to people “Oh, yes, our wreaths are available in Boston and Brussels.”

During our Sunday loading in and setup at The First Lutheran Church of Boston, Pastor Ingo Dutzmann greeted us with his usual smiles and hugs, pointing out something we had forgotten – this year marks our 15th year at the Church decorating wreaths.  The project started years before in Margaret Pokorny’s basement, but as we grew in scope and sales, we needed a larger, more permanent place to be.  The First Lutheran Church is perfect – in the neighborhood, with a big basement workroom, a gated outdoor courtyard to keep wreaths fresh and safe, an overhang in the event of inclement weather, and the most welcoming staff around.  Thank you, and Happy Anniversary!

Each October we begin promoting our wreath sales on our website and through a mailing to members and past purchasers.  In each case we direct interested buyers to our Online Store, where they may buy using PayPal or where they may print out our order form, fill it in, and mail it with a check.  This year, the minute we began, visitors to our site began getting red DANGER boxes from Google saying http://www.gardenclubbackbay.org was an unverified website and a menace to all who entered.  Most people chose the “Get Me Out of Here” option, which was certainly prudent.  Our web designer Faith Crawford in Los Angeles was on the case immediately, and discovered that WordPress, the company which hosts our blog, had been hacked through its plug-ins (don’t even ask, just know that these plug-ins facilitate ease of use) by possible groups reputedly connected to ISIS.  WordPress hosts many blogs for not for profit schools, universities, groups such as ours, even Friends of the Public Garden.  The disruption this caused was immense.  Thousands of sites were compromised, and the FBI investigated.  We immediately cancelled the plug-ins, rebuilt parts of the site, and had Google give us the all-clear signal. As one of our members commented, “ISIS sees Garden Club ladies with sharp pruners as a threat.”  While the situation was not at all funny, it certainly was a first for us!  Below is a lovely all natural, very peaceful wreath done for a customer who did not want a bow on her wreath.

The Garden Club of the Back Bay has wrapped its Holiday Wreath Project for 2015, and from now through Epiphany we will feature a wreath each day with an accompanying story of the process – what we might call Adventures in Wreath Land.  No specifics today, since we’re all too tired from five days of set up, decorating, delivering, and clean up.  We show a cheerful, and fully laden red, pink, gold, and champagne wreath to get you in the mood.