How To Make Easy And Sustainable Holiday Garlands

The use of garlands can be traced back to Ancient Egypt, where people would bury their embalmed dead with flower garlands. Per Britannica, these woven garlands were meant to be a celebratory adornment for the deceased and were a symbolic offering of good luck in life after death. The Greeks and Romans also were privileged to use garlands as building and table décor, and in Hinduism, marigold garlands are commonly seen as offerings on statues of deities. But the Christmas garland, writes the Baker Design Group, is thought to have been brought over by the first American settlers. Money was scarce during the winter months. To help bring in some extra income, families would weave together pieces of nature and sell them to other family members, friends, and neighbors to supplement their limited funds. Thus, the Christmas garland was born.

Making your holiday garland is straightforward, entertaining, and super green. It doesn't require too much: just some string and one or two items. The art of making a garland can also be a somewhat meditative process. These are a few simple Christmas garland options to try out this holiday season because nothing says "crafty eco-warrior" like making your own earth-friendly Christmas décor.

It might come as a surprise, but oranges are symbolically linked with the Yuletide season. Smithsonian Magazine explains that the 19th-century tradition of putting oranges in the toes of Christmas stockings is meant to represent good fortune. During the Great Depression, an orange was indeed a luxury item, so receiving one was like a Christmas miracle. An orange slice has an uncanny resemblance to a coin, so it only makes sense to hang a golden garland around the house or tree to bring prosperity.

To make these colorful, eco-friendly garlands, you'll need oranges, string, and spare time. After thinly slicing your oranges, place them between two paper towels to draw out any extra juices, notes The Toasted Pine Nut. Put the slices on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet and bake them at 200 Fahrenheit for three to four hours, flipping them over at the halfway mark. Once your oranges have cooled down, take a toothpick and poke little holes in them for your string. Add other Christmassy elements like pinecones, which represent regeneration, family, and enlightenment, via Symbol Sage or cinnamon (abundance and prosperity, per Well+Good) for some extra good tidings.

Cinnamon is one of the warmest, most inviting smells synonymous with the holidays, and it is Christmas in spice form, via Veecoco. The same can be said about pinecones. After all, when the supermarkets begin selling bags of cinnamon-infused pinecones, they're saying Christmas will be here in a month or so. Instead of buying into capitalism and purchasing premade cinnamon-laced room deodorizers, why not make your own? Even if you don't have pinecones in your area, you can still get cinnamon, and you can use your creativity or get inspiration from the other garlands on this list and make an option unique to your home. 

Once you've sourced your pinecones, you will want to de-bugify them. Straight-out-of-nature cones can have mildew and bugs living in them, and those do not belong in your happy holiday home, writes Refresh Restyle. Once properly cleaned, you can keep your pinecones au naturel or add white earth-friendly paint to simulate snow. Grab some thematic string and start tying knots, creating your own pattern as you go. Soon you'll have a beautiful garland that you can reuse the following year or go in the compost when the season is over.

This is one of the more earth-centric and rustic garlands on the list, but it also uses the least components. All you'll need are scissors, as well as strings and sticks that are all relatively the same length. That being said, it's also a bit more tedious to build than the other garlands, so make sure you've got something streaming on your TV to keep your mind preoccupied or allow the process to put you into a meditative state. 

You'll need to do a bit of recon for this one, which entails going outside and finding some branches or sticks of uniform size and thickness, per Funky Jun Interiors. The uniformity makes them easier to work with, but variety can also add a bit of character to your garland. Once you've collected around a dozen or more tree fingers, you'll want to cut each stick into three-inch pieces. Then comes the fun part. Working in small batches, tie a knot around one stick, add a twig, tie another knot, and so on. Once you've finished as many mini bundles as you'd like, tie them together for a lovely, farmhouse-inspired Christmas garland. Feel free to decorate it with cranberries and other holiday goodies.