I’ve written my monthly newsletter for two years. During this time, my writing has changed. My photography has grown. My life has evolved to include both amazing moments and real loss. I am not the same writer who started writing over twenty-four months ago. My readers have grown, too.
I create Rewind from a simple premise: still photography communicates meaning about the world (both natural and manufactured). Find a poignant picture, and it can break your heart, just like a well-crafted poem or a letter from a dear friend. Some of my favorite essays from the last two years have been from the Rewind edition. Colors, textures, lines, all placed together with only a few words strung between them. That’s exactly how I want these essays to flow.
In my final essay of 2024 coming out at the end of the month, I’ll share thoughts about gardening and what it might mean to question if everything really starts and ends with being human. In the meantime, enjoy a series of festive photos featuring seasonal designs from the last few weeks.
I wait until the days leading up to Christmas before making indoor evergreen arrangements. They are so pretty and smell wildly authentic, but indoor air is too dry for arrangements to stay fresh. A case of strep throat and a car with no heat pretty much convinced me to make easy indoor bouquets this year. I have to admit, they’re just as festive as any other year’s design.
My Covid hobby has become an annual tradition: making wreaths with foraged items + dried fruit + a pretty ribbon.
In early December I take a weekend afternoon to dry orange slices in the oven for holiday decorating. I’ve hung them in the Christmas tree, fastened them to holiday wreaths, and will use them when wrapping gifts. To make slicing easier, I freeze the fruit for about 45 minutes and then use a sharp knife to create thin circles that dry up uniformly in the oven.
Two large terra cotta planters flank our back door. During summer months, I fill both planters with annuals like canna lilies, coleus, snapdragons, and nasturtium — flowers that greet visitors and balance our back entrance. This November I filled the planters with mixed evergreen branches, dried flower heads, and magnolia stems just before the temperatures dropped below zero. Now they are frozen into summer’s left over soil in a semi-permanent arrangement.
I don’t believe in having too many hand-made wreaths. If I had more windows and doors, I would create even more than the three currently hanging in our yard.
I made these paper stars last year using origami paper, and they held up so well, I put them up again this year.
I slipped this archived personal photo of my husband’s Christmas cheesecake into this month’s newsletter because I’m secretly hoping he will make it again. I don’t like cheesecake, except any kind that he makes.
December’s garden is all indoors and rather quiet. I have rosemary and coleus cuttings over-wintering under grow lights. A large section of the laundry room is also devoted to potted plants. Technically, I could start winter sowing seeds in large milk jugs after the solstice, but we don’t really have any snow yet. To keep myself busy between outdoor gardening and seed starting, I write poetry and work on small watercolor projects.
A rare treat: seeing my work in a friend’s home. I upload photos to my online store and then never know what happens once someone’s purchased them. What a lovely thought — to know someone else in the world will enjoy the exact same view as me. Purchase photos at Roots & Vines.
Thanks for reading this month’s visual essay. Leave me a comment to let me know which photo was your favorite.
See you at the end of the month for a new long-form essay (and details about a new feature coming to Roots & Vines in January, 2025).
-Betsy
Beautiful wreath! The fresh green color next to the orange is beautiful.
I wish I lived next door so I could take in the beauty of these items up close. This is my favorite of your newsletters! It inspires me to try designing a wreath next year. I dry fruit, too, but thus far, only for craft cocktails! And those stars! Amazing. :-)