we're having a big Christmas party here next Saturday so I'm trying to make the house look really festive and since it's a very old house it was built in 1826 I'd like to keep the decorations of the period and there are a lot of ways to decorate a fireplace mantel with greens but I noticed in watching other YouTube videos that almost everybody used fake greens purchased from Home Depot or Lowe's or Walmart and back in 1826 those stores didn't exist nor did plastic greenery so I'm using greens that I obtained right from my very own garden and what I have here is some lacy fronds of Fuji Green Giant I have a huge hedge of Fuji in my yard and also some you branches and I'm trying to keep the arrangement sort of flat because when I'm finished with this swag I'm going to decorate it with things I found in the produce department at my local supermarket so if you'd like to make a similar swag for your mantle or for the center of your dining table or for a bookcase what you do is start with some jute twine I love jute twine because it's biodegradable you can throw the greenery on your compost pile when Christmas is over and you don't have to worry about removing wires and bits of plastic and things from your arrangement so take the jute twine and you want to measure the length of your mantle and I've already done that as you can see over here and then you want to cut several pieces oh four to five inches in length and we're going to use these pieces to tie the greenery together and by the way since I use the fireplace here to heat the room the room can get very warm which would mean that the greens would dry out quickly so I sprayed all of the greenery last night was something called wilt proof will proof is an anti transparent it seals the moisture into the green so the needles won't fall out even when the room gets very warm so get yourself some of this if you're planning to use evergreens so you take whatever you're using and again this is Fuji Green Giant this is a you branch and you put them together I'm doing sort of Criss crossing mine and you want to arrange them to cover up the previous group you've made like so and then you take some of your small piece of jute twine and you tie them to the long piece of jute twine that runs the length of your fireplace mantel and you don't have to tie a lot just tie a knot and you want your little groups to all be facing the same way until you get to the very end then you reverse course so we're at the very end of our swag so I'm going to turn these branches the opposite direction from the others and tie oops there we go by the way I mentioned that anti transparent spray you could spray your entire Christmas tree if you use a real Christmas tree as I do and the needles won't fall and there we go I think that looks pretty good and I've put this urn in the center because I'm going to have a a focal point in the center of my display so I'll be right back with my toppings to make this arrangement look as glamorous as possible start by putting candle sticks at each end is one and two I like that I have a mirror in front of this arrangement as opposed to a flat-screen TV because it's going to amplify everything in front of it and then in the center of the arrangement in the urn goes a pineapple a pineapple is the symbol of welcome next comes the produce department we're going to arrange some granny smith apples in front of the candlestick we all do three here and three at the other end there are no rules here you can just play around with kind of fruit you have and just like with the plastic greens that did not exist in the 19th century I suspect plastic fruit wasn't available then either and you could use pinecones from your yard in this arrangement I forgot to grab some from my yard before the snow came so for a hint of brown I'm using some Bosc pears let's see them maybe put one there maybe one over here another one here and tuck one in the back here and for a punch of red pomegranates will come to the rescue pomegranates are plentiful this time of the year here in the Northeast they are available in every supermarket and now you can see why I didn't make this swag too bushy if I did all of the fruit would roll right off and I think this is looking good already and let me show you what I found at my supermarket it's called dragon fruit see where should we put the dragon fruit maybe here and maybe another one over here and then we need something to kind of cascade over the sides for this I think grapes will work so here come the grapes took some green grapes here maybe another over here and here is a stunning cluster of red grapes ooh that looks pretty it's a nice big bunch here we'll move our Bosc pear place this here I think we're done except I need to light the candles and then I'd like you to get an overall view of this so I'll go get some matches and then we'll rearrange the camera so you can get a front on view and I'm sorry we're back I forgot my clementines clementines like pomegranates are also available in December in every supermarket and the orange will really make the orange will make everything pop in the arrangement great color to mix in with your greens and your red pomegranates and your red and green dragon fruit and your green grapes and your brown Bosc pears and your Golden Delicious apples oh we're looking good okay now we who reset let's light the candles and I'm sure some of you are wondering about how long this fruit will last and I can tell you from previous years it will last at least seven days but if you're concerned that the fruit might go bad on your fireplace you could just arrange this shortly before your guests come for Christmas or for a Christmas time dinner party and then everything will be fresh and wonderful and I suspect some of you are wondering about fruit flies and in truth here in in New York's Hudson Valley it's too cold here for fruit flies in December so they are not a problem at all and as you've seen this arrangement was very easy to do the greens cost me absolutely nothing and because I sprayed all of the grains with anti transparent or wilt proof they will last and last if you enjoy my cooking videos and my house tours and decorating videos I hope you'll subscribe to my youtube channel I also hope you'll post a comment below meantime enjoy this arrangement I hope you'll do the same thing at your own home and have yourself a very Merry Christmas bye for now you