By Chris Young
MethuenLife Writer

The family of Keith and Jen Retondo prefer to do things for themselves.
Keith and his dad, Bob, built Keith’s and Jen’s house on Forest Street.
Jen and Keith raise chickens for eggs. This fall, Keith built an ice-skating rink in the backyard for their daughters, Kaylee, 9 and Courtney, 5.
Jen is a gardener and fills the house with the flowers and shrubs she grows. Now, with Christmas just a few weeks away, she and her girls are busy decorating and filling the house with Christmas fragrances … naturally.
Jen had always made her own Christmas arrangements for both inside and outside the house. This year, for the first time, she is making holiday potpourris – filling bowls with the bounty she and her girls collected in the neighborhood, then adding fragrant berries and fragrant oils.
“Potpourri” is a mixture of dried, naturally fragrant plant material, used to provide a gentle natural scent in houses. It is usually placed in a decorative wooden bowl, or tied in small bags made from sheer fabric.
Jen’s main source of information about making potpourris is “Potpourri and Fragrant Crafts” by Betsy Williams, an herbalist from neighboring Andover. The recipes here are also from the book, published by Reader’s Digest (Nevins Memorial Library can get a copy for you through interlibrary loan).
“What I learned from reading the book is that (making potpourri) doesn’t have to be expensive, especially if you collect most of the things you add,” she said.
In late November, before MethuenLife visited, Jen and her daughters toured their Forest Street neighborhood collecting pine cones and berries and snipping tips from the many evergreens she found in their own and neighboring backyards.
“We have at least seven evergreens in our backyard, which Keith planted five years ago. We’ll use them for Christmas trees, eventually. I snipped tips from them and then I gathered some from my in-laws’ yard,” Jen said.
In the meantime, Jen said, she buys big branches of greens for decorating at a garden center or gets them free from the place Keith buys the family Christmas tree: “They usually have loose branches on the ground from pruning the bottom branches and don’t mind if you take some.”
Jen used some of the greens she didn’t need for the potpourri to make a miniature Christmas tree so the girls could hang ornaments from it. They made the ornaments from Jen’s recipes for salt dough and cinnamon-applesauce dough. (see box)
Using the basic recipe for a holiday potpourri in Williams’ book, Jen added a few items not in the recipe such as barberries, winterberries, broken cinnamon sticks, rose hips, star anise (fennel) and whole nutmegs. Then she made another potpourri made from dried fruit and dried spices, such as rose hips, anise and nutmegs which her mother-in-law, Barbara Rotondo, gave her. Barbara and Bob buy and sell antiques and run a gift shop in New Hampshire. Barbara buys the potpourri contents in bulk online, but most of Jen’s additions can be bought at local craft shops or big discount stores at reasonable prices. They are meant to be used in making crafts, therefore they are cheaper than edible spices you buy at the supermarkets. It is not a good idea to use the craft-store items in cooking.
Jen’s second potpourri, which she put in a smaller bowl to adorn her kitchen hutch, is made totally from the dried fruits and vegetables Barbara gave her. The list includes: oranges, limes, star anise, rosehips, pomegranate, cinnamon sticks, whole nutmegs, bay leaves, artichokes, cloves, pinecones and quince.
Over the next two weeks, Jen will allow the greens to dry before adding enhancing oils, such as bayberry, balsam, spruce or even cinnamon oil to make it smell even more like Christmas. The oils should be added to the mix with an eyedropper. It works best when the oil is dropped onto hard surfaces such as branches or pine cones. The oils, called “essential oils,” can be bought at craft stores or a natural foods store.
The smell is so festive that you will want to put a bowl in every room in the house, starting with kitchen, living room, bathrooms and bedrooms.
Then, when the holiday season ends, you can pack the potpourri away for another year.
Yes, you can save it for next year. Just revitalize it from year to year with fresh cuttings, then add six to eight drops of essential oils after which you stir it thoroughly. To preserve the green mixture from year to year, pack it in an airtight plastic container and store in a dry, cool room.
Fill the house with great fragrances this year and always.

Chris Young is a free-lance writer who loves to garden. E-mail her at chriswords@verizon.net.