Wreaths, Ornaments, and God’s Gifts

Hillary Ibarra reflects on creative traditions as a great gift from God that unite us to Him and to our families. 

The art of making something reminds me of praying the Rosary because the repetition of stitches, patterns, or motions to realize something beautiful calms us and unites us to our Creator. When we share what we’ve handmade with others — a Christmas Season homemade feast, for instance — the blessings increase because we emulate the One Who gives abundantly through His creation. 

What We Create During this Holy Season Honors Family Traditions 

I make wreaths during wintertime because in the winters of my childhood, grapevine wreaths provided for my family. My parents rolled grapevine wreaths to make a living, roaming the Tennessee woods for miles to pull grapevine from the trees. Their wreaths were thick and beautiful. To me they looked perfect, and I still have one of my parents’ wreaths — decades after they stopped rolling them — hanging in my dining room. Grapevine wreaths did not make my family rich, but they provided for us, and they remind me of how God provides for us daily.  

I try to keep the tradition of rolling wreaths, and God has blessed me with the natural materials, though I now live in the Southwest hundreds of miles from the Tennessee woods. In Arizona, huge eucalyptus trees shaded our little home and produced fragrant, pliable branches perfect for wreaths. In New Mexico a massive bush dominates our front yard. Young branches shoot out from it, defying its manicured shape. I roll Christmas wreaths from those tender branches and fashion woodsy snowmen with their imperfect but charming circles.  

I feel connected to God and to my family through wreath-making. 

Traditions Increase as Families Unite 

Recently, my husband, children and I learned to make old-fashioned ornaments with squares of cloth and Styrofoam balls from my father-in-law. My father-in-law made a collection of ornaments many years ago, and every year they adorn my husband’s parents’ tree. Two of my father-in-law’s ornaments have hung on our Christmas tree for years because they reminded my husband of home. Now, we and our kids make them, too, and give them to loved ones.  

As I created imperfect patterns with cloth and admired the patterns my father-in-law, husband, and children made for those ornaments, I realized the biggest blessing of making ornaments together was a family tradition just like rolling wreaths, a tradition that keeps giving because the art of making these ornaments and wreaths harkens back to family and roots and produces something meant to be shared. 

This Christmas Season and this new year, I hope you see the great blessings of God in every craft project with your family, every homemade decoration passed down through generations, and in every work of art you, your spouse, or your children create. Throughout this year, in everything we make and share, may we all recognize and cherish the abundant creative gifts our Creator has given to us. 

I will rejoice in those gifts as I fashion a homemade cardamom-bread wreath, complete with a hidden baby Jesus, for our Three King’s Day celebration, grateful again for the work of our hands and for family traditions. Happy New Year! 

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Copyright 2026 Hillary Ibarra
Images: Canva