Christmas 2012: Wreathed in glory, I'm ready for Christmas After coffee and home-made ginger cake to warm us up in the barn, she gives us a demonstration. The foundation of the wreath is a ring of Oasis floristry foam set in a metal frame. The foam has been dampened, and if hung outside won't need to be watered again. "First you need to green it up," says Kitchin. Don't be shy, just remember to hold up the wreath every so often to see how it looks when hanging. If something doesn't look right, take it out again. Reaching for one of the five varieties of eucalyptus on offer, she starts filling the edges of the ring with sprigs, twigs and berried ivy. It all looks terribly haphazard, but as she works her way inwards with flower heads and variegated Pittosporum, something rather lovely begins to take shape. Although the modern vogue is for hanging a Christmas wreath on the front door, at its inception it was a horizontal ring featuring candles that were lit on each Sunday in the run-up to Christmas, a practice still carried out in churches. Kitchin's wildly popular classes, which take place in Berkshire and Wiltshire, have a fund-raising dimension, as a percentage of the £45 cost goes to the Rainbow Trust Children's Charity and Naomi House Children's Hospice. "It's also a lovely morning or afternoon out with girlfriends, and a great way to meet people," she says. What is intriguing is that not only are no two wreaths ever the same, but each one reflects the personality of the person who made it, so they can be crazy and flamboyant or terribly symmetrical and neat, covered in bright baubles or very tight and controlled. Ah, so not only an artistic challenge worthy of Andy Goldsworthy but the Yuletide equivalent of a Rorschach inkblot test. No pressure then. By way of prevarication, I decide to do some journalistic research, otherwise known as peering over my fellow wreath rookies to see what they have created. Mira Miller, 47, a teacher from Newbury, is crafting a supersize wreath to hang on her Farrow and Ball-green front door. "My door is really big, so it needs a bold statement," she says. I have four boys and a husband. I can't imagine any of them will notice it, but I will. Given that her bold statement revolves around vibrant sprays of yellow mimosa cascading outwards, it would be hard to miss. She concedes it reflects an extrovert personality. At the other end of the scale, Laura Hazell, 49, from Basingstoke, has made an evergreen table decoration that is an exquisite exercise in restraint. "I may give this as a gift, so I have erred on the side of formality," she says. Her friend, Celia Woollett, 49, is also making a table decoration, but has included so many dried apples, oranges, berries and chilli, peeping out from a jungle of Euphorbia, she could probably serve it for lunch. It is slightly scary to think this encapsulates my character, but my husband would agree that it does. They are all a little too fabulous for my liking, but eventually I can procrastinate no more and return to my table and my empty Oasis ring. I start, hesitantly, sticking assorted shades of ivy around the perimeter, interspersed with rosemary sprigs and, you know, it looks rather nice. And when I start adding the red Skimmia flowerbuds and ornamental thistle heads, it fast becomes tremendous. Then I'm off, pinning silvery moss to the interior, hurling on handfuls of cranberries and dried oranges by way of bling. I am tempted by the pheasant feathers, but am worried that the dog will try to chew them. I'm also swithering over gold-sprayed pine cones and a blousy ribbon, but then something - possibly an innate sense of decorum I didn't know I had - stops me. My wreath is ready. And as Kitchin holds it up, I gasp in admiration at my own handiwork. Except it doesn't look like my handiwork at all. It looks like a glorious evergreen (surprisingly tasteful) celebration of nature. Is it me, though? "It's very organic," opines Kitchin carefully. Very simple and natural. There's nothing artificial about it, which gives it a real sense of integrity. Gosh. I'm blushing both for me and my wreath. Glowing with a sense of accomplishment, I set off home to pin my fabulous organic integrity on the front door. whitehorseflowercompany.co.uk; 07885 036044