Bethany Lowe

Bethany Lowe grew up on a small Midwestern farm in Illinois. Her mother was a homemaker and my father was a Veterinarian. Holidays were a magical time for her family and our rural community. They dressed up for costume parties and mummer’s parades. They had pumpkin carving contests, and trick-or-treated throughout their neighborhoods. They went for horse-drawn sleigh rides and ice skated together on country ponds. She went caroling door-to-door, and built snow forts and snowmen to greet passersby. As a child, one of her favorite traditions was creating May baskets from paper and flowers – special gifts that she hung on the doors of friends and family.

The most wonderful time for her was when her family gathered to decorate their Christmas tree and the boxes of ornaments and decorations came out of the attic. Unwrapping them was like opening a gift of memories, with each ornament telling its own story. Her child-made ornaments from school projects always brought laughs and teasing from her brothers and sister, but her mother made sure they all had a place of honor on their tree. Their tree was not the beautiful, perfect designer tree you see today, but her memories of that tree are some of my most vivid and cherished recollections, as it brought them all together in the spirit of the season. Unfortunately, since her mother always allowed her four eager children to help, not many of the beautiful ornaments survived, which may be one of the reasons she loves to create new decorations with an old fashioned, vintage feel.