COLONIAL WILLIAMSBURG INSPIRED
Now that we live in a colonial-inspired house in Virginia, I wanted to incorporate a Colonial Williamsburg Revival Style Christmas into our décor.
Of the many ideas, I wanted to decorate oranges with cloves which is super simple.
During Thanksgiving weekend, the kids and I sat down with my book, Christmas Decorations in Colonial Williamsburg, to glean inspiration while oohing and aahing over the lovely variations of clove-studded oranges.
I don’t think these are quite historic to the 18th century, because the people of that era would never waste previous food on decorating…and they decorated little, if at all, for Christmas.
Christmas decor, as we know it, hails from the 1823 publication of The Night Before Christmas which cleverly described jolly Santa and his sleigh with a toy delivery one’s chimney from the roof top.
For our modern tastes, Colonial Williamsburg decorates with a colonial inspired decor, which was minimal with natural elements, embellished by a Renaissance artist.
CREATING OUR CLOVE-STUDDED ORANGES
The ingredients list is simply: oranges and cloves.
The cloves have a sharp enough end, that it’s easy to punch into the orange peel.
However, an object like a nut picker can be used to create the hole for easier insertion of each clove.
With one small container of whole cloves we decorated about five oranges.
This is an estimated usage of cloves, because the amount required is dependent on the intricacy of the design.
This was such a fun activity because it’s easy and they smell terrific!
VARIETY OF DISPLAY OPTIONS
With a variety of display options, including building them into a topiary, simply placing them in a bowl, suspending them from ribbons, incorporating them into wreaths, etc, etc, etc…we incorporated them into our advent candle display on the kitchen table.
Of all the advent candle arrangements over the years, this is our favorite.
Even though the kids helped me decorate some a few years ago in Texas, our warmish winter caused the oranges to become moldy before the season was out.
Now that I’m discovering how frigidly cold Virginia is in December, I suspected the oranges would easily last the entire season, which has definitely proven true now that it’s almost Christmas.
