Recreating childhood Xmas

When I was a child in the run-up to Christmas I loved helping with the decorations. An old hamper, that had been passed down the family from great-grandparents on my mother's side, would be extracted from the attic. Inside was a hotch-potch of decorations, some shiny glass balls and tin stars and a lot of home-made wooden things. My favourites were fir cones and various seed-heads that had been painted silver. Each year they became a bit more battered and broken and they were eventually replaced by gaudy modern baubles and tinsel from Woolworths. I decided this year to collect a few seed-heads and spray them, in an effort to re-connect with those simpler celebrations of my childhood.