It’s a Saturday morning in early December, and eight of us have gathered inside the barn at the A.C. Parsons Garden Center in the Mount Desert Island village of West Tremont. We stand around tables, surrounded by pine cones, moss, and boughs of balsam fir, hunched over wreaths and centerpieces at various stages of completion. We are here to try our hands at creating our own versions of these traditional Christmas decorations.

And so we work – women and men, young and just a little bit older – many of us making our very first wreaths.

There is a rhythm to our work, and it is a soft, soothing one that encompasses motion, sound and smell.

There is a snip as we use clippers to prune balsam fir branches, a rustle as we position them on metal rings. Our left hands hold the loose brush on the ring; our right hands wind wire from a spool to secure the brush on the form.

The brush is cool and fresh, just gathered from nearby woods. It is stiff and prickly, like teeth on a firm hairbrush, and it leaves black pitch on our hands as we work. Its aroma fills the barn.

We are discovering it is not easy to make a wreath. Indeed, it is something of a challenge.

So we encourage one another. We admire one another’s wreaths and centerpieces. We exchange easy banter, making new friends and renewing old acquaintances. We dream big dreams for these wreaths of ours, imagining what they will look like and whom we will give them to.

Sue Parsons is smiling just as much as we are. This is the second year she has organized the series of wreath and centerpiece workshops, and she is fascinated and delighted by what her students create.

“I’m happy for each one here,” Parsons says, surveying her students at work. “When they are done, they are very proud of it, and they take it home. The wreath becomes an extension of the person, and that’s special. It’s a gift.”

The wreath-making business has been in full swing since the end of November. All over Maine, and particularly Down East, scores of businesses, large and small, have been producing wreaths for local and national markets.

A.C. Parsons produces about 500 wreaths, most of them sold by mail order. Parsons says that only about 10 percent of A.C. Parsons’ total business comes from wreath-making. The rest is generated by landscaping and greenhouses.

A.C. Parsons is in its 20th year, and is owned by Sue Parsons’ husband, Allen Parsons.

The barn and greenhouses are located on the same property as the Parsons home on the Richtown Road in West Tremont.

Five years ago, Sue Parsons decided to offer people the chance to decorate their own wreaths. Many said they would like to make the wreath itself, too. That prompted her to begin the wreath and centerpiece workshops.

This year, Parsons and expert wreath maker Mary Grace have conducted workshops on five Saturdays, and will offer workshops on Dec. 15 and 22. There are two workshops on each Saturday, with the first session offering a choice between centerpiece making and wreath making; and the second exclusively for wreath making. The number of students in each workshop has ranged from eight to 20.

Parsons also has conducted a special workshop for the fourth-grade class at Tremont Grammar School.

Parsons, a former art teacher who has studied at the Colorado Institute of Art, Midwestern State University in Texas and College of the Atlantic, has lived in Maine for the last 10 years. She says her training in art therapy helps her appreciate the emotion that each person invests when they create a wreath or a centerpiece.

“There’s something about creating that comes from a person’s soul or spirit. If people zone in and do it with a passion, they are able to produce one of the most beautiful gifts you will ever witness.

“The way someone makes a wreath tells you something about that person. It’s such an intimate way of expressing yourself. And it’s a privilege to get to know a person that way,” Parsons said.

I approach my wreath-making project with some trepidation. After all, I am from Washington County, and we are supposed to know how to make wreaths.

But, much to my shame, I have to admit that I have never made one – this despite working at the Wreath Shoppe in Harrington when I was in high school (I was just a lowly wreath-boxer). And despite living on North Street in Harrington – the same street that is home to what everyone (at least in Harrington) knows as the world’s largest wreath factory: the Worcester Wreath Co.

My mother used to work at Worcester Wreath or with our wreath-making neighbor, Edie Berry, in her barn. She still makes a few wreaths every year for our family Down East and in New Jersey. Big, fluffy, full wreaths she makes, after the manner of her forebears the Strouts and Grants, I have been told.

So I look skeptically at my empty metal ring and, under Grace’s watchful eye, begin to wind the brush onto it. I hope I have received my mother’s Strout-Grant wreath-making gene.

Grace is a native of New York but has been making wreaths since she moved to Maine in 1985. She says she learned the craft from Mary Rafferty, “a local, an old woman who had done it her entire life, and who was very patient with me,” Grace says smiling.

This is her first year conducting the workshops, but she seems well-practiced in the art of teaching. She starts by demonstrating how to cut the brush (hold it with the backside facing you). Then she shows how to angle it on the ring and how to grip it with our left hands. Next we twirl the spool of wire around the brush using our right hands, flip the ring over, and repeat the process.

Easy, right?

We discover it’s not as easy as it looks – or at least not as easy as Grace makes it look.

“It’s a lot harder than what you’d think it’d be,” says Belinda Reed of Southwest Harbor.

“It’s time-consuming, and your hands get sore. But you get used to it after a while,” Reed assures.

Reed is a native of Swans Island, but she has never made a wreath before. She says she wants to learn to make wreaths and centerpieces so she can give them to her family and friends in Florida next year.

Frances Reed of Tremont, a cousin of Belinda Reed by marriage, attended the centerpiece workshop the week before.

A native of Ghana, she moved to Maine 10 years ago after marrying her husband, a Seal Cove native whom she met while he was stationed in the military in Germany.

Frances Reed says her husband and children now plan to attend the workshops, and she hopes they can begin a tradition of making wreaths together every year.

“It will be good for us to do together, and [my children] can do it with their kids and family one day,” she says.

As we work, Parsons and Grace move among us, offering advice and helping if we have difficulties with the wire.

Our wreaths are beginning to take on their own character. Frances Reed interweaves cedar boughs with balsam fir branches to create a two-hued effect; Belinda Reed finishes hers and moves on to decorating it with a maroon bow and pine cones.

Even my ring is starting to fill out with the cheerful green boughs.

Alice Savage of Northeast Harbor is making a centerpiece and a wreath.

“It’s fun – and something more in the Christmas spirit than shopping and having stress,” Savage says.

Betty Mitchell of Somesville, who accompanied Savage to the workshop, agrees.

“I love the smell, and I love that I can do it myself. All these years I’ve been buying [wreaths]. … But now we’re doing this and the ocean is right outside the window. What could be better than that?” she asks.

Almost two hours after beginning, I attach my last bits of brush with a final twirl of the wire around the ring.

Two hours, I think to myself somewhat critically, would certainly not meet the Strout and Grant standards of wreath-making efficiency. After all, Grace says that it usually takes her about 45 minutes to make one, and she believes she is “slow” by industry standards.

Even so, I’m pleased with my first effort. And I have gained a greater appreciation for the skills and hard work of the men and women Down East who have perfected this craft.

Parsons and Grace have provided a wide array of decorations for us to choose from, from pine cones to reindeer moss to different-colored bows.

I select a single powder-blue bow for mine, and decide not to use any other decorations. I like it that way.

“There’s something to be said for a simple wreath, with just a bow,” Parsons tells me.

I walk around the barn as the others finish their creations, admiring their different styles. The wreaths and centerpieces vary in size, thickness and decoration. I marvel at what we have done.

Grace is smiling.

“The secret to wreath making is to relax and enjoy it. … There’s no such thing as a perfect or an imperfect wreath. They all come out beautiful,” she says.

Sue Parsons and Mary Grace will conduct wreath and centerpiece workshops at A.C. Parsons Gardens Center, Richtown Road, West Tremont, on Saturday, Dec. 15, and Saturday, Dec. 22. The centerpiece workshop is set for 10-11:30 a.m. and the wreath workshop begins at noon. The cost is $12 for one workshop or $20 for both. For more information contact 244-7785 or visit www.acadia.net/acparsons.