>> "J Schwanke's Life in Bloom" is brought to you by the following... >> That flower feeling.

♪ 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.

♪ ♪ >> I show you ways to enjoy flowers for the holidays in this episode of "Life in Bloom."

We'll decorate mini boxwood trees, wrap presents the J way, and I'll make a bouquet including a few of my favorite things.

♪ ♪ I'm J Schwanke.

Welcome to "Life in Bloom."

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

When it's time for the holidays, my thoughts turn to spreading good cheer with decorations, including flowers, of course.

I have a few flower projects for the holidays to share.

However, I also love vintage Christmas decorations, and I wanted to share with you a few of the cherished items I enjoy every year.

Some of them are from my own childhood, and many are decorations that were just too good to pass up.

This aluminum tree is a great example.

I found this on a trip to Nebraska, and I was in the town of Valley, Nebraska, and I went into an antique store.

There it was in its box, including the color wheel for the base, and it's become a treasured decoration ever since then.

Speaking of trees, I have several ornaments from childhood.

Santa and his Elf here are particular favorites, as is the angel at the top of the tree from Kel's childhood.

Aside from vintage ornaments, I also have some treasured gifts.

Incorporated into the tree is a larger-scale decoration.

It's a Julenissa, or a large elf.

It was given to me by a cherished friend, and it's always been part of my Christmas tradition.

It's fun to take a large-scale decoration and place it into the tree.

And a nest is a must for any tree.

As legend has it, a tree with a nest brings prosperity for the following year.

As you may notice, my love of vintage Christmas items extends to decorations around the house, including the packaging.

King Santa here was a great find at an antique show, but the box he arrived in is also in great shape and worthy of display.

The packaging of these angels is just too good to hide away.

I call this one Santa's greenhouse.

It was a surprise from a friend.

I love that it lights up and flashes, as well.

These salt-and-pepper shaker Santa and Mrs. Claus figures are fun to display on the dining table.

I was swept into the putz-house phenomenon a few years back.

A tiny Christmas village is hard to resist.

This vintage mid-century card always makes its way out on display somewhere in the house.

Speaking of mid-century decor, I found this magical musical domed nativity just a couple of years ago.

This adorable little Santa band fits just about anywhere.

This festive alligator is a fun favorite and was crafted by Kel's high-school art teacher.

Here's one more item from my childhood, my stocking.

I love the beadwork.

And, of course, there was a stocking for my best friend, Blossom.

She's right here, and here's her stocking.

These were handmade by a babysitter, Rose Brannigan.

Thanks for indulging me with a tour of decorations.

Now let's see how flowers can add to the excitement of decorating for the holidays.

♪ Boxwood trees are a popular holiday decoration.

You can purchase them at your local market or online or create your own using a flower foam cone and fresh boxwood.

So we can place this inside any container.

Today we're using a clay saucer so that we have a nice, rustic appearance for all the rest of the elements.

First thing to do is add our pinecones.

I've got these great Austrian pinecones, but, again, they don't have a pick on the back.

So what I've done is I've taken a covered wire, and I'll weave it in between the pinecone at the bottom and then twist it tight.

I've used a 22-gauge wire, so then I can take it and insert it directly into the tree.

We'll also be using millimeter balls.

With these, I can use one of the wires and wrap it around the stems to bind them together and then cut it off.

We'll place those in the tree, as well.

Stigmata pods are going to be a great accent, along with some silver balls.

So that gives you an impression of what the tree's going to look like.

Now all we need to do is decorate it.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ And now we can add a ribbon.

I can have tufts of burlap like this, and what we'll do with that is we're going to add it towards the bottom.

Since our tree's kind of tiny and this beautiful burlap ribbon is very wide and would cover up a lot of things, we'll just tuck it along the bottom.

And I'll do that in a couple of places around the outside.

I can add this great little burlap cording as a garland on the tree, and I'll take it and get it started at the top just by pushing it down into the tree itself.

Then we can use our turntable and just loop it around the tree.

Now our little boxwood tree is decorated and ready to celebrate the holidays.

♪ So it's time to make some hot chocolate.

I'm not a marshmallow fan.

So I know many of you love marshmallows, and that's great.

I'm not a marshmallow fan.

I like whipped cream on my hot chocolate.

So today we're going to make peppermint whipped cream to go on our hot chocolate.

But let's make the hot chocolate first.

So we've got our hot chocolate in here, and we're going to add our milk to that.

And we'll get that going.

I think the great part about this is that Christmas is a time for memories and making traditions.

This is the kind of thing that can become a tradition for people.

So while we're heating that up, we can start our whipped cream.

We'll start with a pint of heavy whipping cream.

♪ I like to use powdered sugar to sweeten it.

I use about 3 or 4 tablespoons.

♪ Then I add a little bit of vanilla and a few drops of peppermint extract.

♪ ♪ ♪ Now, you'll notice I left a little bit of room because I like a lot of whipped cream on top of my hot cocoa.

There we go.

So cheers.

Happy holidays.

♪ ♪ Christmas is always about memories, and this is one of my favorite arrangements.

When I was a little kid, we grew up in the flower shop, and there were all sorts of accessories that we always had in the flower shop for Christmas, and one of them were these cute, little novelty dancing Santas.

And I just think that they are cute because my mom would use them in corsages, and they would use them for different sorts of things.

Somehow the mold has been preserved and I still see them available online in different stores that I go to.

So I have a collection of the dancing Santas, and I usually make an arrangement that has a few dancing Santas in it.

It also reminds me of the old Judy Garland special where there were a whole bunch of Santas that came out and danced with Judy.

So that's kind of the theory behind it, is that we've got a whole bunch of Santas that are going to go in this arrangement.

We're going to use red carnations and white fuji chrysanthemums.

We use a little bit of sugar pine, got a few ornaments, and our dancing Santas.

We've got a red cube filled with flower-food water.

We'll add a little bit of sugar pine.

I always like to start with a greenery structure to help hold the other flowers in place.

Then we'll add our fuji chrysanthemums.

I'll add four around the base.

♪ Then I can tuck carnations in between.

♪ ♪ Once I've got my carnations in, I'll add one more fuji chrysanthemum, and we'll tuck a little bit of sugar pine in the top of the bouquet.

Some of the Santas have shorter stems, so I can stick those directly into a flower where others can get placed throughout the bouquet.

We'll accent it with our ornaments.

♪ There we have it, dancing Santas, a perfect Christmas arrangement.

♪ ♪ Amaryllis means "to sparkle" in Greek.

Its genus name of Hippeastrum is derived from the Greek words for "horse" and "star."

In nature, amaryllis blooms in spring or summer but are commonly forced into early bloom for the holidays.

Amaryllis make dramatic and long-lasting cut flowers.

The U.S. imports more than 10 million amaryllis bulbs every year, mainly from Holland and South Africa.

Plant breeders have developed more than 600 named varieties.

The amaryllis genus Hippeastrum has yielded several substances with medically useful properties, one of which has shown promise as a treatment for Alzheimer's disease.

A properly cared-for amaryllis plant can live for 75 years.

♪ So, this is a great project for the holidays, and it's super easy.

Each one of these cylinders will be exactly the same.

We're going to use evergreen and we'll use our winterberry, but the secret fun part about this is the cranberries because cranberries float.

So we're going to add cranberries to our vases.

♪ See how you get a great, little level on there?

And then our stems will go right through those cranberries.

♪ So now we'll start with our evergreen.

The evergreen will help us give structure to the base.

I want to trim off any of the pieces that are going to fall below the waterline and then our winterberries are going to go in the top.

♪ The cranberries provide some structure, but I like the collar of sugar pine to provide crisscrossing stems.

So when I place my ilex in as a bunch, it'll stay in one spot.

I've trimmed each bundle of ilex to be exactly the same length.

There's eight stems in each one of the cylinder vases.

Once the vases are complete, I put them in the middle of the evergreen wreaths.

These are cute, little evergreen wreaths that I got at the farmers market.

Then we'll add a ribbon accent.

I roll off about a yard-and-a-half of the wide plaid, and I take one of my ilex branches and push it down into the wreath.

Then I add the red shear ribbon, which emphasizes the red in the ilex berries and the cranberries.

You see how simple it is to make this little trio centerpiece.

But remember, you can also do it with just one vase and one wreath, too.

It's a great idea for holiday decorating.

♪ ♪ We're going to wrap a Christmas present.

And, of course, these Christmas presents are amazing because you can add all sorts of different items to them and make them personal.

So we've wrapped our package in a coordinating paper that goes with the ribbon.

I'm using four different kinds of ribbon so that I've got a great variation.

We'll start with about 2 yards of ribbon.

I love this chevron pattern.

Chevrons are really popular right now, and we're going to wrap it around our package and tie it into a knot.

Now, you'll notice that I left the tails long so that they can stick off to either side.

Now I'll pick an alternating ribbon -- this one with the green and the sparkle in the middle.

For the second tie, we'll do about 2 yards of ribbon.

And we'll bring those up and tie those into a knot.

Now we're tying them right over the top of the other knot.

And you'll notice for this one that I left two long pieces.

We're going to use that to help create the rest of our bow.

So with my chevron ribbon, I'm going to come back and make a loop.

With this, we're going to construct the bow in separate pieces.

So I grab my ribbon... ♪ ...and I make two loops.

I lay that down on top of my bow and tie it into place with these two ends.

So you'll see that I'm starting to construct a bow out of different types of material.

So let's add the rest of the ribbon.

We're adding ribbon on top of ribbon.

So I'm making a loop or two in my hand and then tying it into the center of the bow.

♪ The fatter ribbon goes on the bottom, and the skinnier ribbon goes towards the top.

Once I've tied the ribbon in place, I can go back with my low-temp glue gun and glue in other decorations.

♪ ♪ I'm using smaller and larger ornaments.

Birds are great.

Pinecones.

You could even add a little sprig of fresh Christmas evergreen.

It's a great way to add a personalized decoration.

♪ These packages are showstoppers.

I hope you enjoyed learning the J way to wrap packages for the holidays.

♪ So, when Christmas rolls around, people always ask me, "What's Christmas like at J's house?

What do you like for Christmas arrangements?"

I have a simple favorite, and I wanted to share it with you today.

It's just like the Christmas song, "My Favorite Things."

It's red carnations, white pine, winterberry, pinecones.

It's very traditional, and we're going to create it in my favorite vase.

This is the only time of year you can get ilex or winterberry.

And so we'll start with that.

♪ We'll add our white pine.

♪ ♪ Christmas was always a really busy time at the flower shop, and I remember one year, it was Christmas Eve, and my grandma wanted to know where the Christmas tree was.

Most of the lots were closed.

There weren't a lot of Christmas trees to be found, and my grandpa went out and we had a Christmas tree that we'd removed most of the branches off of.

We'd use the branches to plug into other Christmas trees to make them fuller.

And so there was that trunk laying on the ground that had a couple branches.

So my grandpa cut off the branches and took it to the flocking booth and flocked it with snow.

Then he spray-painted it black and then took it home.

So it was just a trunk with the stems sticking out.

On all of the different stems, he hung different shapes of red Christmas ornaments from this big to this big.

It was awesome and the most decorative Christmas tree anyone in Fremont, Nebraska, had seen in the middle of the '60s.

And, as some of you know, his name was "Carnation" Joe Green, and that's why the Christmas arrangement always has red carnations.

I love the red carnations.

They last so long.

There's great memories.

♪ We also need some variegated holly.

Green holly's really pretty, too.

There's a lot more berries on green holly, but the variegated holly is just so traditional.

♪ Wouldn't be Christmas without a few red ornaments.

♪ Just gather those together.

I'll attach them to wood pick just so it's easier to insert it into the middle of the arrangement.

We'll also add a couple pinecones.

Just adding a covered wire to the back.

You slip it around just a couple of the petals of the pinecone.

And, again, we'll just use that wire and attach it to a wood pick so it's easy to insert into the bouquet.

One of the reasons that I love this vase so much is the fact that there's plenty of water in the bottom, and I can wrap my ribbon right around the neck of the base.

These are a few of my favorite things.

♪ ♪ I truly enjoy this special time of year filled with traditions that will bring joy for years to come.

Whether you're reminiscing of days gone by or creating new memories for future generations, I hope you'll be inspired by some of these projects to include flowers in your celebrations.

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

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

>> Visit J's website, uBloom.com, for flower projects and crafts, complete recipes, behind-the-scenes videos, J's blog, flower cocktails, and more.

♪ "J Schwanke's Life in Bloom" is brought to you by the following... >> That flower feeling.

♪ 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.

♪ >> Closed-caption funding provided by Holland America Flowers.

♪