J Schwanke’s Life In Bloom

"J Schwanke's Life in Bloom" is brought to you by the following... At home.

At work.

Or anytime.

CalFlowers is a proud sponsor of "J Schwanke's Life in Bloom," where flowers and wellness go hand in hand.

We have fresh in all our stores, from soups and steaks and all things flour to all things flowering.

Custom fresh arrangements designed by our in-store florists at Albertsons Companies.

With additional support from the following... PassionRoses... Suntory Flowers.

It's a Dickens of a Christmas special, with inspired ideas for flowers and entertaining the past, present, and future of the holiday season.

I'm J Schwanke.

Welcome to "Life in Bloom."

I will honor Christmas in my heart and try to keep it all the year.

I will live in the past, the present, and the future.

The spirits of all three shall strive within me.

A couple of years ago I was in London Town in early December.

As a fan of "A Christmas Carol," a classic, truly inspired work by Charles Dickens, I was compelled to visit the Charles Dickens Museum.

It was fascinating to learn more about the author and the times in which the tale was composed.

It's highly recommended.

While I've seen many, although perhaps not all, film versions of this tale of Christmas several times, and some with annual appointments, I had never read the book upon which they are based.

I purchased a copy at the museum and read it through on the plane ride home from London.

It was a surprisingly cozy experience that nicely enhanced the mystical and profound aspects of Mr.

Dickens' written words.

Another highly recommended investment.

Which brings us to here and now, and an unapologetic inspiration for the theme of this humble Christmas episode of "Life in Bloom."

There are many aspects of "A Christmas Carol," first published on December 19th in 1843, that speak to me -- its historical context, its universal appeal, its mystical properties, and its unwavering message of the potential for change and a positive outcome.

I hope you enjoy our offering and the holiday season.

He was conscious of a thousand odors floating in the air, each one connected with a thousand thoughts and hopes and joys and cares long, long forgotten.

The smells of the holiday season enhance and evoke memories with amazing acuity.

Here's a fragrant project that many have enjoyed in a Christmas past -- a cloved orange.

I have shared photos and they always seem to bring on the memories and the reports of the results.

I'll show you how to make one, and I'll show you how it can be included in a flower arrangement as well.

I love a cloved orange.

It makes me think of when I was a little kid, and we would sell arrangements with these in them in our flower shop.

And it wasn't until just this last year that I figured out how to do it much easier.

These clove florets have a little spiky spike on them, and sometimes they have the little floret on top.

You can imagine trying to shove this through an orange peel with your thumb.

You're going to get damage to your thumb.

And I thought there has to be an easier way.

My bamboo skewers I use all the time, and I'm so sorry I didn't think of this years ago.

So what's really great is taking that bamboo skewer, making a hole, grabbing your clove and then sticking it into the hole you already made.

It's super easy.

And you know what?

You can make one or two holes if you want to.

So there we have one, two, three holes.

One.

Two.

Three.

So then you can create patterns if you wish.

I love these.

Look at that.

How fun.

Or you can fill it in.

We're going to make this arrangement with our cloved oranges inside this wooden container.

It doesn't have a liner, so I simply dropped a glass vase down inside.

We have our soaked flower foam down inside there, because I'm going to want to strategically put things in places that I want to make sure that they stay in, especially with our cloved oranges.

We're going to bevel the edge of our foam, as we always do.

It's easier to go into the foam if it's beveled on the sides.

I've built this up in the back using my three different types of greenery.

We've used evergreen, some Viburnum, and some ninebark.

We have it going up in the back.

We're coming down in the front.

We'll add a few more flowers before we add those oranges.

As we add our oranges, we're going to use two skewers.

So just a bamboo skewer.

And we're going to put two in there so that it won't rotate once we've placed it exactly where we want to in the flower foam.

Perfect.

Our cloved oranges are going to last the whole season.

We may need to replace a few of the flowers, but the evergreen and foliage are going to stay for the whole season too.

This is a great way to have a fragrant arrangement that will give us the memories of Christmas past.

My Aunt Alyce, "Carnation" Joe's middle daughter, made these cookies every year, not only for our family, but also for customers at Green's Greenhouses, our family flower shop.

Special thanks to my cousin Sue for locating and sharing this edible memory.

It's a classic type of sugar cookie, and it represents Christmas past for me because I think about all of the Christmases that we enjoyed these.

Let's make them together.

We're going to start with a cup of butter, softened, 16 tablespoons.

It's inside our mixer.

We're going to add a cup of sugar and a cup of powdered sugar to our butter.

Then we'll add our eggs, two eggs, and a tablespoon of vanilla.

Once those are incorporated, we'll add a cup of oil.

I use avocado oil.

Then we'll add a tablespoon of salt, a tablespoon of baking soda, and then what I consider to be the secret ingredient -- a tablespoon of cream of tartar.

We'll make sure that everything's all well-incorporated.

And then we're going to gradually add 4 cups and 4 tablespoons of flour.

So then we spoon it out in ball shapes onto our parchment paper.

What we're going to do is I've just wet a paper towel and I have a glass, and I'm going to dip that in sugar so I can press my cookie.

She always decorated them with a little bit of green sugar.

And a little bit of red.

So now we're ready to go into our 350-degree oven for 10 to 12 minutes.

Just when they start to get brown, that's when we want to bring them out.

Unless you like a darker cookie and then we let them cool before we're going to move them onto our plate.

Now we taste them.

The thing I like about them is they're a little soft in the center, but they're crispy on the outside and they just melt in your mouth.

Christmas past.

Thanks, Aunt Alyce.

Come in.

Come in and know me better, man.

I am the Ghost of Christmas Present.

Look upon me.

You have never seen the like of me before.

Don't you love the Ghost of Christmas Present?

As a flower person, my antenna is always positioned to notice flower references in anything and everything, which, of course, includes "A Christmas Carol."

I was always intrigued to see the Ghost of Christmas Present with a crown of holly in the book, and in so many treatments.

Holly is a classic Christmas evergreen.

And I love to include it in Christmas flowers.

I'm also intrigued by a rather dark reference in the book as follows.

"If I could work my will, every idiot who goes about with a 'merry Christmas' on his lips should be boiled with his own pudding and buried with a stake of holly through his heart."

So dramatic and unkind.

But a stake of holly is such a wonderful turn of the phrase.

Anyway, let's get back to the jolly and fun Ghost of Christmas Present.

A Christmas flower crown will be great fun at any gathering.

It's not a good idea to make a flower crown out of holly unless you want to go through and trim off all the points off the ends of the leaves.

So that's why we're using a permanent botanical holly to create this.

We're using a metallic craft wire.

I'm going to cut off about a yard or so.

And what we do at the first end is we bend it back and we make a loop.

Then it's time to measure.

So this is for my head.

We're going to come up here and I'm going to bend it right there.

That's where the size of this needs to be.

So I'm going to bend that back.

This is a little bit too long so I can cut that off.

I'll use that for another project.

This end is going to go through that loop to create the circle that'll fit on my head, but we're going to work with it in a straight line right now.

And I have that bend there so I know where to end.

Our other key ingredient is craft-covered wire.

This comes in several different colors, so I'm using this brown because it matches the stems of the holly.

We're actually going to use pieces about this long.

Then I'm going to go through here and break these up.

So see how I've got a cut there?

That gives me two pieces.

And then this one gives me one.

So we're going to start with one of the two pieces.

We're going to lay it over the top of our loop.

And we're going to grab our craft covered wire.

I've got about three inches that head down this direction.

And again we're covering that loop.

We're going to wrap this around there.

So see how we're just continuing to wrap that in place?

Lay another piece on top.

and we just keep going.

We never cut off our wire.

Another piece lays down here.

We can weave in between the leaves if we want to, to make sure that it's secure, but we always want to make sure we wrap around a couple times so that it hangs onto it.

We're staying on the same side too, notice, so that when we make this into our ring, all of this beautiful holly is going to be towards the outside and this side will be towards our head.

I'm gonna wrap all of this right here to the end, and I can turn it around to do that a little bit easier so I'm not having to wrap around this piece.

I can wrap around the smaller end.

I need to remember to continue to go in the same direction, because if not, it would unwind all the way to the other end.

Here's that loop.

We're going to stick that wire through that loop and bring this together up here.

Now, notice how we left this a little bit longer than the loop.

So those pieces fit in there and our wire wraps around them to cover up that little gap.

So our wreath's complete.

And now I think I need to don it, but I think I need a coat of Christmas Present.

There we go.

Reminiscent of the Ghost of Christmas Present.

A holly flower crown is a wonderful way to celebrate your holiday.

Although I think I need a cocktail.

How about some gluhwein?

The joy of the feast is such an appealing part of the Ghost of Christmas Present.

I'm inspired to share a recipe for hot gluhwein.

Gluhwein is simply wine that is mulled with spices and served hot.

While its origins date back to Roman times, it gained prominence in Germany, particularly at Christmas markets from the 15th century onward.

It is found at Christmas markets throughout Europe and many in the U.S.

Red wine is often the base, however, I really enjoy this white wine version and you can also make use of the cloved orange.

We have one of our cloved oranges that's studded, all ready to go.

So that goes into our pan.

We'll add a full bottle of wine.

I prefer to use a Sauvignon Blanc.

Then we need 1/2 cup of orange liqueur.

1/3 cup of sugar, some cinnamon sticks.

Some allspice.

And a few extra cloves.

Then we'll heat it.

We let it simmer for about 15 minutes.

We prepare our mug with a cinnamon stick and a slice of orange.

Then we ladle it into the cup and we're ready to serve.

This is one of my Christmas favorites.

It's delicious.

Cheers to my favorite ghost, the Ghost of Christmas Present.

Our featured flower is the peppermint carnation.

I remember these as a little kid.

We grew them in the greenhouses.

They still have a fragrance that still reminds me of Christmas, and we would do so many red and peppermint carnations for the holiday.

I just like the way that they're candy striped.

That would be another term that people would use for them.

Carnations are so long-lasting, and it's a wonderful way for us to make an investment in flowers for the holiday and have them last throughout the season.

Cutting them and putting them in a vase with pine or other accent flowers is a wonderful way to enjoy them.

You will always find in my house that there's going to be an arrangement of carnations around the house at the holidays.

a wonderful way to enjoy the Christmas holiday.

"Men's courses will foreshadow certain ends to which, if persevered in, they must lead," said Scrooge.

"But if the courses be departed from, the ends will change."

The Ghost of Christmas Future is perhaps the spirit that evokes fear.

Although Marley's visit at the beginning of the story is also a little bit of a fright.

Spooky Christmas, as it were, may have originated with Mr.

Dickens over 180 years ago.

As Scrooge's possible future finally comes into focus for him at the story's apex, we do start to think about our own relationships with our fellow man.

Here's the thing.

The story highlights that it's never too late to change.

It's easy to relate to.

Who hasn't needed a fresh start at some point, even if it's just trying something one more time?

Maybe your celebrations have not succeeded as you would hope.

However, you may still refocus and make your next celebration the best one ever.

So let's lighten the mood of Christmas future with a fun and festive decoration for the Christmas season.

I thought it would be great for us to build a Christmas tree out of flowers.

So what I've done is I've stacked flower foam.

It's already been soaked in flower-food water.

I've stacked these pieces on top one another and beveled the edges.

As I stacked them, I placed opposing angles of bamboo skewers into them to give it stability to hold it in place.

Let's get started with our flowerful Christmas tree.

So that gives us our shape for our Christmas tree.

And now we can come in with phase two and add flowers.

We're going to add our flowers to shape our tree.

I try to keep in mind that bigger flowers go towards the bottom and the smaller pieces go towards the top.

That way we have a natural apical shape to our beautiful flower tree.

You'll notice that I've laid those flowers down close to the flower foam, but with a rose like this, I want it to be more emphatic.

So I'll stick it out so it sticks above the other flowers.

That's a great way to get dimension in our flower tree.

My final step is to add decorations.

I love pine cones for their texture, but I also like millimeter balls because they're reflective.

When I have three, I just twist them together and then they create one stick that can go right into the foam.

I think we need another pine cone right about here.

And ornament there and a little triple one here.

So now we have our flower-filled Christmas tree.

It's perfect for the holidays.

And I love that it has all sorts of different types of flowers.

Maybe there's a flower Christmas tree in your future.

And it was always said of him that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge.

May that be truly said of us and all of us.

Here's a toast to Christmas past, present, and future.

Happy holidays.

Thank you for indulging my fascination with Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol."

One of the most beautiful things about Christmas is that it can be a time of reflection, recalling comforting moments with those no longer with us, nesting in traditions or creating new traditions to enjoy year after year.

For "Life in Bloom," I'm J Schwanke.

As an enthusiast of the story, I've also enjoyed the biographical movie "The Man Who Invented Christmas" with Christopher Plummer as Scrooge and "Downton Abbey's" Dan Stevens as Charles Dickens himself.

Well worth the watch, in my humble opinion, and it's been added to my list of annual traditions to enjoy.

"J Schwanke's Life in Bloom" is filmed in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

J's flower-arranging tips, helpful hints, and arrangement recipes are available in J's two books, "Fun with Flowers" for $25 and "Bloom 365" for $20 plus shipping.

To purchase these books and any of our additional products, visit ubloom.com/store.

To learn more about flower arranging and J, access to videos, and to get recipes, tips, techniques, and much more, visit us online at ubloom.com, follow J on Facebook and Instagram @jschwankeslifeinbloom.

"J Schwanke's Life in Bloom" is brought to you by the following... At home.

At work.

Or anytime.

CalFlowers is a proud sponsor of "J Schwanke's Life in Bloom," where flowers and wellness go hand in hand.

We have fresh in all our stores, from soups and steaks and all things flour to all things flowering.

Custom fresh arrangements designed by our in-store florists at Albertsons Companies.

With additional support from the following... PassionRoses... Suntory Flowers.

Closed-caption funding provided by fabulousflorals.com.