The Garden Club of the Back Bay’s Wreath Project is an all-volunteer endeavor. From taking the orders to producing the tags, from the accounting to the bill payments, from the set up and break down, decorating and delivery, nothing happens without our members, and in some cases, friends of members. We thank everyone who planned, everyone who worked, everyone who lent moral support, and everyone who bought. Without all of you, we couldn’t help the street trees in the Back Bay to the extent we do.
We had a number of absolutely beautiful silver and white wreaths this year and thought you would enjoy seeing some of them, side by side. Grey can be tricky – you don’t want a wreath that looks like a radiator. The decorators did a magnificent job avoiding the pitfalls.
Often we don’t see the wreaths we make hanging up on peoples’ doors, but this year a new client purchased a matched pair of wreaths for his South End building, and we were treated to pictures of the wreaths after being hung. We aren’t going to say we would have aligned the bows better when mounted, but assure you they were matched when they left the church courtyard. We know the difficulties of hanging on tall doors which are accessed by steep steps with little flat landing space for a ladder. They look beautiful!
The First Lutheran Church of Boston welcomed a new Pastor in 2019, just after our last Wreath Week before Covid. The Reverend James P. Hopkins was called to New England directly upon the completion of his resident MDiv studies at Concordia Theological Seminary — Fort Wayne, IN. During his time at seminary Rev. Hopkins played on the basketball team, wrote for the Jerome Exegetical Seminar, and tutored in Greek.
Rev. Hopkins holds a B.A. in Sociology and Spanish from Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, IL (2008), and performed postgraduate studies in International Relations at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Before being called into the Office of the Holy Ministry, Rev. Hopkins worked in the Department of Defense and served in the Marine Corps, both on active duty and in the reserves. In addition to deployments to Afghanistan and the Middle East, his fluency in Spanish and Portuguese caused him to be posted in Colombia, Brazil, Uruguay, Panama, and Nicaragua. He now continues his military service in the reserves as a Navy Chaplain. He was very gracious to our Club during Wreath Week, even joining our volunteers for a meal, and we look forward to a long and fruitful relationship with our new host. We have been active maintaining the north facing Church garden on Marlborough Street, which we are sure has been enjoyed by the Congregation as well as by neighbors.
We wish you all the very merriest of days. The Garden Club of the Back Bay thanks you all for your continued support of our Club and mission, and hope you continue to find interesting events to participate in with our website’s help during the coming year.
Below is an example of Why We Decorate. A local building, identity clothed in secrecy for the protection of the residents, is having a moment this year which we felt we had to share. We do invite your comments, however, with suggested captions. Just email info@bostonflora.com. Our suspicion is that two unit owners each offered to decorate. Or a building superintendent went into storage and pulled out whatever was on hand. In the most generous interpretation, twin eight year olds each got to choose a wreath for the door. As for the tropical leaves in the planters, we doubt they will last through the first freeze. I’m sure the Back Bay will be most grateful when we are able to return to selling and decorating wreaths. Tomorrow we will showcase an elegant pair done this year by one of our members for her own building.
While we aren’t able to decorate wreaths for our customers in 2021, we do have talented members who, on their kitchen counters or porches, take what items they can gather and proceed to decorate a few wreaths for themselves and for their friends. Sometimes bows are recycled from past seasons – savvy members always store their bows after their wreaths are taken down. Wired ribbon can be fluffed and resuscitated, even taken apart, ironed, and reformed, to look good as new. Dried sturdy materials like pine cones and lotus pods last a long time, and artificial items basically are good for the next hundred years. By purchasing a plain wreath at the garden center or grocery store, beautiful results are possible, like the one below. Our vast displays of materials and mechanics like picks and wires are missing, making this process more difficult and much less fun. Nevertheless, we persist.
In a “normal” year we would be beginning our Wreath of the Day features, highlighting our creations from the holiday Wreath Week project just wrapping up. For the second year in a row, that project has been put on hiatus due to COVID concerns. Celebrating our past achievements, however, is still possible. Hard to believe that the picture below was taken thirty years ago, in 1991, in Margaret Pokorny’s basement on Marlborough Street. It wasn’t even the first year of the project, either. Photos from that era are hard to come by. We had no sense of preserving an archive of what was at the time considered a hands-on craft project with a minor fundraising component. Starting out, we worked for two days, taking orders by telephone, and buyers picked up their purchases at Margaret’s. Over the next few decades we moved to a larger venue, The First Lutheran Church of Boston, organized purchasing by mail, newsletters, and ultimately online, maintained extensive databases, and set up a delivery system. Numbers of volunteers grew, and the project expanded from two days to four and one half days of active work, with preparation tasks beginning in October. The essence of the project, however, remained the same – friendship and neighborhood beautification.
Today we wish you all a Happy New Year. It’s 2021 and we all hope the coming year brings health and a resumption of some of our cherished activities and traditions, if not immediately, at least by summer or fall. We intend to be back decorating in December, and will be planning accordingly. These posts over the past month have brought back many happy memories but are certainly bittersweet. We miss each other. Continue to be careful, please, and enjoy the many online activities which have blossomed in response to lockdowns. We will continue to keep you up to date on many of the possibilities to learn and enjoy.
Thank you to long time customer Julie Mathisen, our closing sponsor for Wreath of the Day posts. From our Wreath Volunteers: “See you all next year!”
New Year’s Eve has traditionally been a day in our Wreath of the Day posts when we illustrate a wreath with lots of bling – it’s a celebration night, after all. This year we are (hopefully) not carousing, at least at parties or in crowds, so we are showing off some more subtle approaches to the color champagne. Please stay safe, and stay indoors tonight if you can.
Thanks go to Laurie Thomas for her sponsorship of Wreath of the Day. Laurie is not only one of our most talented decorators but is renowned for her beautifully round and balanced designs.
