By Hand is a monthly prompt that focuses on freeing our words by using our hands. This month, we’re exploring decorating.
***
For the last nine years, I’ve finished a big writing assignment—or two, or three—right around Thanksgiving. Which means my brain is fried, and I long to do something by hand, something that does not involve words. Which means I decompress from writing-jetlag by decorating for the holidays.
We moved into a new home this spring and bought a new tree, so decorating this year took longer because I had no idea where anything should go. I worked by hand for three days: unwrapping, washing, drying, hanging. It not only soothed my soul but also freed my mind.
While climbing a ladder to reach a tall branch, I had an idea for an upcoming creative writing workshop. I climbed down, jotted the thought on a notepad, climbed back up the ladder, and resumed decorating. By the time the house was done, I had jotted down half a dozen notes, all by hand.
Prompt Guidelines and Options
1. If you haven’t decorated for the holidays, no worries. If, perhaps, you’ve been avoiding the task, consider unpacking one box. (Singing along with Michael Bublé is optional.)
2. Consider decorating your table with goblets, fun plates, funky utensils, or special china before ringing in the new year. Run your fingers around the edge of your own goblet, utensil, or plate a few times to get the feel of the glass, crystal, porcelain, stoneware, etc.
3. Consider getting out a ladder just for fun and seeing how the decor of your living room looks different from a higher vantage point. Feel each rung of the ladder as you climb.
4. Write a poem, vignette, or fiction story opener that springs from your decorating or climbing experience. Or that springs from New Year’s or the holidays. Or write something entirely unexpected (Ode to a Fork Tine?)
That’s it! We look forward to what you create when you do it By Hand.
Photo by Kiuko, Creative Commons via Flickr. Post by Megan Willome, author of The Joy of Poetry.
Browse more writing prompts
__________
“Megan Willome’s The Joy of Poetry is not a long book, but it took me longer to read than I expected, because I kept stopping to savor poems and passages, to make note of books mentioned, and to compare Willome’s journey into poetry to my own. The book is many things. An unpretentious, funny, and poignant memoir. A defense of poetry, a response to literature that has touched her life, and a manual on how to write poetry. It’s also the story of a daughter who loses her mother to cancer. The author links these things into a narrative much like that of a novel. I loved this book. As soon as I finished, I began reading it again.”
—David Lee Garrison, author of Playing Bach in the D. C. Metro
- Perspective: The Two, The Only: Calvin and Hobbes - December 16, 2022
- Children’s Book Club: A Very Haunted Christmas - December 9, 2022
- By Heart: ‘The night is darkening round me’ by Emily Brontë - December 2, 2022
L.L. Barkat says
I’m so pleased you’re doing this new column for 2018, Megan. The hand is connected to the heart, I believe. And, to inspiration.
I haven’t done the decorating in several years (always let my girls do that), but due to your encouragement, I put my hand to it last night. (Yes, I was in here editing the other day, so I got a sneak peek! 🙂 ). I made sure to take note of how each ornament felt, and then that got me inspecting them closer, which made me think how dear and creative my mom’s heart is deep down (she’s made so many of the sewn ornaments on my tree), which made me appreciate her more and feel a little sense of awe. So… thank you. 🙂
Megan Willome says
Thank *you*! How wonderful to feel that sense of appreciation and awe just by touching with your hands and observing.
Few of our ornaments are handmade, but each tells a story—the scratchy straw star from my parents’ first tree; the girl on the smooth wooden swing, received in an ornament exchange in first grade; the rough, glittery Dollar Tree snowflakes from the year I was so put out with the holidays that I bought all new ornaments and made a green and gold tree.
L.L. Barkat says
Awe is one of the themes of the book we’re reading next here at Tweetspeak. Now that I think about it, so is touch. Perhaps in one of those winding ways, the two are related (via the vagus nerve, which seems to be a big player in most of the goodness we find ourselves experiencing).
Well, that’s another discussion. But I did marvel how touch led so easily to awe, while mindfully decorating.
I love all the stories of your ornaments—even the exasperation story. Such stories in themselves are a writing prompt, yes? 🙂
Katie says
Christmas
container in
from the garage, chock full
of decorations, ornaments
mem’ries
open the lid, pull
out the wonder, hang it up
step back, sigh, oh my
Megan Willome says
Mem’ries, yes indeed, Katie.
Did you realize your second stanza is a haiku?
Katie says
Thank you, Megan – yes, that was intentional!
Sandra Heska King says
“pull out the wonder”
Yes.
Katie says
Thank you, Sandra:)
It was kinda bittersweet decorating this year since it was just hubby and me and yet, we enjoyed it – he had the idea to add ribbon this time and I really like it! Plus, he found the quintessential shaped tree at the Boy Scout lot – so three new strands of lights (and 100+ bucks later!;) we have a wonderful tannenbaum:) Also, remembering when and where we got some of the ornaments or who gave them to us was fun:)
Merry Christmas!
Megan Willome says
The first time we decorated alone was bittersweet as well (more bitter, to be honest). But now it’s something we look forward to. Adding something new adds a whole new feeling–literally.
Katie says
Yes, it does:)
Did you ever do this back in the day – fold Reader’s Digest Magazines into a Christmas Tree shape and spray paint with gold or silver??
Just had that memory return to me last night and I smiled. Have forgotten how many magazines it took to make a complete one.
Merry Christmas, everyone:)
Sandra Heska King says
Last year, having just moved, all we did was put up a pre-lighted fake tree sans ornaments. This year we have the same tree–but I pulled out the ornaments and chose some–not all to hang. Mostly I picked the whites, golds, and reds. There’s the white 2011 Hallmark heart “Always remembered. Always in our hearts.” I bought one for myself, my sister, and my daughter after my mom died. (That was the year of no tree–except a fake white tabletop one that I used this year by the entry way and hung gold balls along with the brass Biederman commemorative ornaments that my MIL used to buy for us every year (from the year we got married to the year she died.
https://www.biedermannandsons.com/index.php/product/2017-commemorative-ornament
I’ve often thought about adding to the collection, but there’s something more poignant about having our collection be “done.”
Other ornaments on the “main” tree hold memories–the red apple that we got the year we were married and has hung on every tree–a Swedish tradition we are told. (D’s grandmother came from Sweden.) There are a couple ornaments that kids from the youth group I once led made me. One of those kids is a teacher now, and one a doctor. There are ornaments gathered from trips, a Precious Moments one my mom gave me, a couple ornaments my son made in preschool that I love–macaroni glued to a backing and sprayed gold and bits and pieces glued to a gold-sprayed canning lid. There’s a God Jul ornament, an ornament from the Netherlands, and a large red “First Christmas in our New Home” that our daughter gave us last year. There are some homemade ones I’ve made over the years–and a turquoise table.
I made a wee book tree, set the old set outside our door again, and hung a live wreath. I keep puttering–realizing I’ll have to take it all down and pack it all up again.
Touching and stroking each one brings back so many memories.
I’m about to drag out an old church that has a winder-upper and plays Silent Night that has been around since I was a kid. And my MIL’s manger. And we aren’t even going to be here on Christmas Day…
Sandra Heska King says
Sled. Old sled. In South Florida.
Megan Willome says
Sandy, I don’t think it matters that you won’t be there on Christmas Day. Touching each ornament or decorative item puts you right back in those memories. I love all the details you shared.
Plus, you can take a tip from Jody Collins and leave up your tree a little longer, a la 12 days of Christmas. That’s my plan.