Blanketing the Grave.

{We found out later he picked only the FREE greens...the cheap bastard}

Decorating cemetery plots during the holidays was something my grandparents did religiously for both sets of their parents.  Since I know this was something that they were particular about doing, I wanted to offer their grave sites the same respect.

Though I had never seen an example of one, Jon said he watched his dad make them years ago, so I put him in charge of picking up the supplies for my mom and I.  When we walked into the garage and saw only a few branches of a tree, we exchanged glances but didn't want to offend so soon. 

I envisioned making a blanket big enough to cover both sides of the grave, I thought that a grave blanket symbolized decorating like a Christmas tree but also to keep them warm?  My mom says no on the warm part.

We zip tied our branches to the wire backing, which wasn't easy when you were basically working on the underside by feeling for your tie.  You know it wasn't only about five ties before we needed more greens againJonisacheapass...thankfully the tree farm was only about ten minutes away!

My mom's hands are Michael Jackson-ish, but I love them.

In Michigan when the calendar changes to December, snow starts piling up everywhere but still today on December 19th we could not even make one snow ball.  On the day we worked on this project, it rained buckets and our fingers got very chilly!

Fast forward a few weeks and I really tried to hold out for some snow to make my grave-site Christmas tree beautiful, but I could wait no longer. Saturday night (since we have no lives outside of work or children) Jon brought the blanket indoors so we could bedazzle it.

Although I'm sure he would have rather been laying on a couch watching a football game, he took my silver paint and went outdoors to paint all the pine cones. You will notice we got a "dusting" of snow that night though it was completely gone by morning.

My mom and I had gone to Michael's to get all the decorations when she was here initially and although I was ready to start blinging the blanket, Jon totally took the reigns and began attaching all the glitter ball sprigs, bow, pine cones and the special "S" initial!

So I got stuck with the glue gun job that made your thumb hurt and he got to be all artistic...which I actually enjoyed because I know he'd love to do one for his grandparents if we were able to. 

I never cried while we made this blanket, I was actually very excited to do it.  The only thing that choked me up for a second was the "S" because they had one on their garage and now they had one on their grave.  I know they would much rather be looking at it on the garage from their living room chairs this Christmas.

On Sunday after church I met mom at the cemetery and I was excited to see what everyone else had out, because remember I had never seen a grave blanket before!  We laughed hysterically when everyone had wreaths, swags or just little pillow type decorations because mine?  Took up the entire back end of my car!

I hope grandpa and grandma aren't embarrassed but their Christmas decor is totally blinding people from the road...no really, even though they are ten rows deep you can't miss their grave blanket from the road.

Since I was still upset there was no snow I photo shopped in some flurries, so there.  Merry Christmas grandpa and grandma I hope you are happy with our first blanket!  I've taken in some ideas from your neighbors for next year already...