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| Pam Dexter outside the blacksmith shop at The Rocks Estate |
There is a small and imaginative band of women who
arrive at The Rocks Estate in November, before the hustle and bustle of the
holidays has brightened the stark landscape of pre-winter. Armed with glue guns
and ribbon, pinecones and berries, these Merry Wreath Makers work as hard and
as secretly as Santa’s Elves through the quiet days of November and into the
jolly arrival of December.
Their mission: decorate thousands of plain circles
of fragrant greens to create beautiful, festive, and whimsical wreaths that
will adorn hotel lobbies, covered bridges, and countless front doors locally
and across the country.
The Merry Wreath Makers at The Rocks – Pam Dexter, Janet
Hill, Bouquette Jones, Hilary Tuite, and Julie Ferland – decorate more than
2,000 wreaths each year. Their creations get shipped to mail order customers,
carted to local inns, and picked up by happy holiday shoppers at The Rocks
throughout the season.
The
wreaths arrive unadorned at the start of November from suppliers in the
northern reaches of New Hampshire. These blank slates of green are piled in the
former blacksmith shop at the historic Rocks Estate, where boxes of pinecones
from Maine, dried statice flowers and canella berries, and yard upon yard of festive
ribbon mingle with dusty old carriage bolts and horse shoes sized for working
steeds.
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| Bouquette Jones |
Hill wears colorful wreath earrings to set the mood. But they
hold off on the Christmas music until around Thanksgiving, when hundreds of
wreaths have been decorated and moved to cold storage, and many already sold.
The
Rocks’ online shop lists a dozen unique wreath styles, from the best-selling
Rocks Traditional Wreath – trimmed with a pretty combination of pinecones,
statice, and cinnamon sticks – to the endearing Chris Moose Wreath. But sometimes
the Merry Wreath Makers simply follow their whimsy each day, adding berries
here and pinecones there, tucking bright red cardinal ornaments and berries
into the greens for a pop of color.
Dexter
makes all the bows – some 3,000 each year – starting in March and working
through the summer to restock before wreath-making season.
Once
the wreaths are decorated, they’re hung on wall rails, where Vanessa Francis,
who operates as wreath quality control officer at The Rocks, gathers them by
the armful to load onto the trailer parked outside. From there, the wreaths are
transported to cold storage and hung by style in a barn out back, by the lot
that will be filled with fresh-cut Christmas trees come Thanksgiving week.
On
busy December weekends two staff members are tasked solely with moving wreaths
from storage to the Farm Store, where customers swoop them up nearly as soon as
they’re restocked.
For
those who like to deck the halls early, The Rocks Marketplace and Farm Store are
open daily now through December 24th (closed Thanksgiving day) from
10 a.m.-4 p.m. Our Christmas tree lot opens November 22nd, when the
farm will also begin Cut-Your-Own tree season and related holiday activities.
We
hope to see you soon at The Rocks!
It’s looking and feeling very much like Christmas here at
The Rocks Estate. Our trees are dusted with snow, there is excitement in the
air, and the farm is bustling with holiday activity! 
You’ll also find ornaments for decorating, locally crafted
jewelry and pottery, whimsical items for the home, beautiful landscape
photographs, maple syrup, and much more. 
