Whether you typically go all-out, or you stick to the basics when decorating for the holidays, front-door wreaths are a definite necessity. They are beautiful decorations for your home or office and can really showcase your true holiday cheer. Hang a wreath on your front door to greet your visitors with holiday cheer that lasts from season to season.
A wreath or garland helps add holiday decor to your home in classic festive style. If you are driving around town, chances are that you have seen a Christmas wreath on nearly every front door. While Advent wreaths are usually placed on stands or tables, there are also decorative Christmas wreaths that are hung on doors or walls. To add a personalized touch to your wreath, how about adding some festive Christmas ribbon and home-made decorations to make it stand out from the rest?
Christmas wreaths are also associated with the pagan festival Yule, marking the winter solstice, celebrated by the Ancient Germanic and Scandinavian nations.
Today, wreaths are used in a variety of religious contexts that are not associated with Christmas. In Anglophone countries, wreaths are generally used as home decorations, and are more often than not used for advent and Christmas decorations. Wreaths are decorative arrangements which may be found throughout a house all year round; however, to many, they are seasonal decorations, with the holiday most commonly associated with wreaths being Christmas. During this season, Christmas wreaths are typically placed either flat on a surface to use as advent wreaths, or they are hung from a single wall or front door.
Although they have become a tradition of the holidays both in the U.S. and elsewhere around the world, many are not aware of their long history and various meanings. In the UK, wreaths are primarily laid on Cenotaphs at Christmastime at a national service of Remembrance. May Day celebrations in England involve a celebration around a maypole, which culminates in a contest between unmarried young men who scale to the top of a maypole in order to catch a May Day wreath that is perched on the top of the Maypole. The maypole The maypole The mayday wreath that is perched on the top of the pole. The winner of this contest would have the wreath worn as their crown, and be recognized as King of Christmas throughout the remainder of the festival.
If you cannot also resist going all-out in your festive decorations and Christmas DIYs, then you are going to fall head over heels over these stunning DIY Christmas Decor. Since the 16th century, beautiful wreaths have been part of our holiday decorations — and there are so many ways you can use them. Choose the Berry Wreath to show off the ultimate Merry Season décor, which will work great with your other holiday-themed accessories. Try to avoid buying one covered with glitter, and be sure to store it away safely after you are done with it, so you can reuse it for the following year.
The Catholic Christmas wreath has four candles – three purple ones, symbolizing penance, expectation, and a pink one, representing a joy that is about to arrive. The four candles represented the elements earth, wind, fire, and water. For each Sunday during the Advent season, beginning on the fourth Sunday before Christmas, she would place one white candle on her wreath, while using one red candle on each of the days between.
Other types of plants used for crowning the wreaths had symbolic significance as well. Today, the wreath hung on one door during the Christmas season can symbolize the welcome of Jesus to oneas house, or perhaps the welcome of the Christmas spirit to a house, together with a blessing. Protestant Reformers like the Puritans saw wreaths, and the holidays with which they were associated, like Christmas, as a corrupting influence from paganism that destroyed sound Christian morality.
