When I rented my first apartment, one of the things I was looking forward to the most was decorating for Christmas. I couldn’t wait to put up a tree, string lights and hang a wreath. I remember going to the nearest home improvement store and purchasing a small artificial tree that I was sure would fit into my one bedroom apartment. I bought five strings of lights in case there was a defunct bulb. (In those days, if one bulb burnt out, the rest of the string was toast.) And, I found the perfect wreath.

This wreath had acorns, red berries and even a glitter of snow. It was beautiful, and extremely way to pricey for me to rationalize given my small flight attendant budget. But, it was the one I fell in love with so I bought it.

I brought it home, careful not to disrupt the carefully placed ornamentation. I hauled everything up the stairs to my second floor apartment and soon realized I had nothing to hang the wreath with. I had forgotten to purchase a hook that would allow my wreath to hang from atop my front door. I placed the wreath on the living room table and walked into the kitchen to make some coffee. When I came back into the living room, I realized that the wreath looked rather lovely centered on the glass coffee table. I went back into the kitchen and grabbed a small candle that I placed in the middle of the wreath. From that day forward, I have never hung a wreath in the traditional fashion, but rather used the wreath as table centerpiece. Just goes to show that even Christmas decorations can surprise you in their capabilities!