The Nightmare Before Christmas

“I have so many ideas,” my sister-in-law, Catherine gushed, when I told her I would be making holiday plants for my daughter’s Christmas market. “Like gluing succulents to driftwood…”

“Uh, huh,” I muttered.

“Or you can put the succulents in antique Christmas cups,” she added.

Unfortunately, I was plum out of antique Christmas cups.

And driftwood.

I asked for some other suggestions.

“Well, you could just take a simple pot…”

My ears perked up. 

Me liked the sound of simple.

“…and wrap it in burlap, which will give it a vintage look. Burlap is SO IN right now!”

“You promise it’s not hard?” 

“I promise,” my hat-knitting, jewelry-making, leather-journal-stamping sister-in-law promised.

Fifteen minutes later, I found some burlap on Amazon.

For $25!

I don’t know much about the going rates of burlap, but that seemed a little steep.

When I told my husband, Steve, he led me to the garage and pointed to a shelf. “I’ve got plenty of burlap for you!”

Who knew I was married to my own personal burlap salesman?

“Hmm,” I said, eying what appeared to be dirty, dusty, old potato sacks. “Maybe I should just buy it on Amazon.”

“No, this will be perfect,” Steve said. “Once we wash and dry it, it’ll look GREAT!”

Simmer down, Buddy, it’s burlap.

But for some reason, both he and Catherine seemed to be pumped about burlap, so I decided to jump on board.

“You’re right,” I said, attempting to muster up a pro-burlap spirit. “It’s going to be awesome.”

The next day, while I was at work, Steve promised to wash, dry and cover the pots I had bought, in burlap. As an engineer, who completes every task to perfection, I was confident that Steve would excel at burlap design.

He sent me a picture on my lunch break.

Was it too late to find driftwood?

“Why is the burlap all bunched up?” I asked him on the phone.

“Because the pots aren’t cylinders so the material doesn’t wrap around evenly,” he explained. “The circumference of the top is wider than the bottom…” 

Oh, goodie, a geometry lesson.

But then I reassured myself, maybe it was just the angle of the picture. Maybe the camera was making it look lumpier than it really was.

The camera does that to me sometimes.

When I got home, I discovered the lumpiness was real.

In addition, the burlap still had patches of dirt and a musty aroma.

Dirty, smelly pot for sale! Get your dirty smelly pot!

I was starting to sweat because my daughter Quincey would be picking up the pots in an hour. 

I went on Pinterest and typed in “succulents” and “burlap pots.”

Just as Catherine had described, an array of adorable little pots, with a festive, vintage air appeared. Some even had decorative Christmas ribbons tied around the burlap.

Ribbons!

Maybe I could just cover the burlap in A LOT OF RIBBON and nobody would even know.

It would be my dirty little secret.

I found some Christmas ribbon, a hot glue gun and got right to work.

Within five minutes, I had managed to remove the skin on all ten of my fingertips.

(Should I ever become a serial killer, good luck trying to catch me!)

I tried to wrap the ribbon around the pot, but like the burlap, it just made it lumpier.

I continued to cut and glue and sweat, surrounded by a sea of burlap and shredded ribbon.

I wiped a tear away with my hot glue gun fingers.

That’s when Quincey showed up.

She gasped.

Then she picked up the pot, which was now just a mound of lumpy frayed ribbon and dirty burlap remnants.

“It’s vintage,” I said in a small voice.

Quincey shook her head, sighing.

We (she) then decided it would be best to remove the “vintage” layers and strip them down to their bare bones, leaving us nothing but three clean, white pots.

“These are perfectly fine pots,” Quincey said. “Why did you ever think it was a good idea to cover them in dirty potato sacks?” 

Why did I?

I scratched my head, unable to answer.

These past 24 hours had been a dark and confusing craft-filled nightmare.

But I had nobody to blame except myself.

And, of course, Catherine.