Anyone else start Advent, planned to use a wreath and realized they still didn’t have one? (My hand is raised.) Or maybe you just need a nice centerpiece to add some warmth and texture to your table. I’ve got you covered.

I made my first ever homemade wreaths last year and planned to do the same this year. We’ve been enjoying Jennifer Naraki’s Slow + Sacred Advent and we found ourselves half-way through the first week of Advent with no wreath. So, I started brainstorming about how to get the wreath look I wanted without lugging 3 kids to Hobby Lobby (I love you, Hobby Lobby.). This wreath became the answer and since I know you love both aesthetics and simplicity, I knew I had to share. Don’t have a wreath frame or floral wire? No problem. I didn’t either.

One of features we love about wreaths is that they’re round. That familiar shape is a symbol of everlasting life. So, what do you have that’s round?

A bowl? A basket? I used an old basket.

Now find one or two coniferous trees in your backyard…or your neighbor’s yard. Perhaps you have a park nearby, although you’ll want to check the park’s policies to make sure your gleaning is allowed. If you don’t have needle-like trees around, try boxwood or other greenery nearby.

Clip a couple of handfuls or whatever amount you think would fill in your round bowl or prop.

See? This won’t take long.

Start to arrange your pieces in a circle around the outside of your bowl, basket, plate…hat?

Sorry. Just trying to help you brainstorm.

Next, if you’re planning to use candles, take a look at how tall they are and see if they’ll need to be elevated. My goal was to put 4 candles in the middle of my basket, one for each week of Advent. I love tall candles, but since short ones are all I had, I went through my cabinets to find something to elevate my candles.

I found these. A wooden bowl and the bottom piece of a flower pot.

First, I put the flower pot bottom in upside down, arranging the needles until only the middle was showing. (Arranging. Such a funny word. Way too formal for what I was doing.)

The wooden bowl stacked on top of the flower pot bottom was just enough height to elevate the candles…and keep my house from catching on fire.

All that’s left is to put my wooden bowl with my four beeswax candles inside.

Then I just moved the needles around to cover up any of the white flower pot bottom still showing from underneath.

I love it. It’s a surprisingly beautiful companion to the blemished wood on our old table.

You can add some fairy lights underneath if you want.

Basket or hat, lights or no lights, let’s let that little circle be the reminder it truly is:

Emmanuel has come.

God with us.

And eternity lingers right here in our ordinary.