Durban - While Christmas is synonymous with excess in terms of food and gifts, many have been drawn back to basics, finding deeper meaning in older traditions. Kamcilla Pillay reports.
Christmas wreaths, depending on who you ask, have many probable origins. For some, they are seen as a symbol of growth and their circular shapes are symbolic of eternity.
Others say wreaths, often hung on front doors, were a touch of spring in an otherwise frozen winter landscape, a promise of what the next season would bring.
The word wreath, says American florist Gerry Wilson, comes from “writhen”, an old English word meaning “to writhe” or “to twist”.
The art of hanging Christmas wreaths, he said, originated from the Romans, who hung wreaths on their doors as a sign of victory and of their status in society.
The tradition, which seemed to fall out of favour over the past few years locally, has made something of a resurgence.
Gail Sookha, owner of All Flowers Florist in Dr Yusuf Dadoo (Grey) Street, said she had already received between 60 and 80 orders for wreaths so far.
“I’ve been doing this for 31 years but have always had a passion for flowers. Christmas wreaths, while popular, are just a part of what we do, but they are very popular.”
She said it was important to remember that wreaths had changed and no longer had to be made fresh.
“We do make them fresh here, but we also use other materials. I think many people think the wreath has to be expensive in order to be beautiful, but that is definitely not the case,” she said.
Sookha said that was probably one of the reasons the wreath had fallen out of favour as a Christmas “must-have”.
She demonstrated that pieces of rolled up newspaper could even be used as a festive and inexpensive touch to anyone’s home.
Kate Semple, of Cape Town-based Andrea’s Topiary Creations, said when making a wreath you needed to look at what people were steering towards for the season, including the different colour schemes, and which foliages would work.
“This will in turn influence your design, size and what you would like the end product to look like. Some people know exactly what they want and then with others we can play around with ideas. Being in the business of making Christmas wreaths, I would say they have generally remained popular around Christmas time. People are definitely more inclined to go with something that can be used all year round instead of buying a seasonal wreath.”
She said it was “very difficult” to gauge how many orders they had filled this season. “(It is) probably close to 1 000.”
She said their range would differ according to what the trend was, as well as what was available.
“Certain foliages can only be picked at certain times of the year. We usually have to plan ahead because one foliage will be available for Christmas that might not be available for the rest of the year. We also need to make sure we get foliage that is picked early in the year for Christmas, treat and dry it, and then store it for when we get the orders. It can be quite stressful because sometimes the growers have a bad year and we will be left without a certain type of foliage.”
She said a challenge they faced was transportation.
“Over the years we have perfected packaging of every item, but once the product leaves our warehouse and is with the couriers, it is out of our hands. Even with fragile stickers and heaps of bubble wrap, the packages are at risk of being thrown around and mishandled. If the products arrive damaged or broken, it can sometimes irritate the customer and sway them towards ordering less fragile things. Each item that leaves our warehouse is handmade by each one of our staff members and this means that not every item is precisely the same as the next.”
l For more information, visit www.topiary.co.za or www.allflowersflorists.co.za
Kamcilla Pillay, The Mercury