Ringraziamento - coroncine natalizie

We had a few more activities during Thanksgiving other than eating. In this post I'll talk about making wreaths.
Wreaths sono le coroncine natalizie - e' tradizione prepararle durante il giorno del Ringraziamento e metterle sulla porta nell'attesa del Natale.
In Italy, wreaths don't really exist. We put up Christmas trees on December 8th, together with our Nativities, but no wreaths. So it was very interesting for me to see how to make them. First of all, you need to have a few pine trees, and you need to know how to cut them down (that's why no one makes them in Italy.. too many houses and too few trees :) :) ). Once you collect enough branches, you have to cut them so that you have pieces of the right length. Then, you have to prepare bunches, nicely organized, and of the right size. You have to assemble these bunches inside some hooks that are part of an iron 'bone' of the wreath. There's a special table where these are assembled, which allows you to clamp the bunches by pressing something with your foot.
If you 'Read more' you'll see how to actually make it!!

Here is the happy wreath-maker :)
And here is a close-up of a freshly started wreath.
And this is a finished-up wreath.
Once you have the wreath, you can decorate it. I did this at home, after taking apart last year's wreath...
Old wreath (made with a different type of pine tree)
and new wreath.
Aren't they pretty? :)