How to Make a Holiday Cemetery Box from Scratch

You see them in cemeteries around Christmas, their display covering the lower part of the tombstone. The Christmas decorations pop up in garden centers after Halloween; positioned to woo the eyes of the customers looking for something to honor their deceased loved one with this Christmas. The Christmas decorations, known as Cemetery Boxes, range in size from a 12" wooden box to a 36" window box. Prices range from $20 to upwards of $50 each depending on size. This Christmas, you can save some needed cash simply by making a cemetery box with materials from around the home.

To make a cemetery box, you need:

Window box or other container

Sand or soil to insert the Christmas decorations into

Christmas greens

Christmas decorations

Florist wire (if needed)

The Box: Window boxes are often the base of many commercially manufactured Christmas cemetery boxes. A leftover window box or oval planter is the perfect base for a cemetery box. If you have a chainsaw or a wedge, you can split the edges off the logs and use the pieces (usually no thicker than an inch and about five inches wide) to make an ornamental wooden cemetery box. Of course, basic wooden boards can be hammered together to make a plain, but good-looking cemetery box.

The Base: Relax; you don't need a big block of floral foam. All you need to do is fill the cemetery box with sand, or if there is no sand, soil. For longer boxes, wrap twine or florist wire at intervals a foot apart to prevent the sand from bulging outwards, allowing the display to collapse. The Cemetery box shouldn't be handled too rough, until the freeze comes and solidifies the entire base. Due to freezing, soil may be hard to find. If worse comes to worse, you may have to buy a bag of sand from your local hardware store. Sand used in a cemetery box must be wet in order to hold the Christmas decorations in place. The heavy sand serves as an anchor to prevent the cemetery box from blowing away.

The Christmas Greens: Cemetery Boxes are used outdoors, so any greens used in the cemetery box will stay fresh. Fir Greens are used in commercial Christmas cemetery boxes, but other greens can be used. The thin wispy greens of white pine work well in a cemetery box, but a lot are needed to fill in the space. Greens of Hemlock, Spruce, and Scotch pine can also be used. Add a sprinkling of juniper greens with berries and Pieris Japonica Andromeda greens to add variety to the cemetery box. You will be handling the greens, so wear gloves for Spruce greens, Juniper greens and white pine greens.

The Christmas Decorations: Gather large pinecones from around the neighborhood. Spray paint the cones red and white to use in place of the ornamental plastic poinsettias and ruscus Christmas decorations of commercial cemetery boxes. Use some plain cones as well in your cemetery box. Other Christmas decorations you can use in your cemetery box are leftover plastic poinsettias and similar Christmas decorations. If you have a can of white paint around the house, you can paint the tip of the cones for the snow effect. You can also work the paintbrush into the cone for a solid white, or red pinecone. Or use gold or silver spray paint to make gold and silver cones for your cemetery box.

Unless you want to fasten the cones to the brush in the cemetery box, the cones will need to be mounted on long sticks. Procure the prunings of Mock Orange or any other bush with straight stems that are eighteen inches long. Fasten the cone to the end of the twig with a piece of florist wire. Your Christmas decorations are now ready for your cemetery box. The bright red berries of winterberry twigs also make great Christmas decorations for cemetery boxes. Select stems of winterberry with long, straight stems. If the Christmas decorations are too long, cut to the desired length.

The ruscus Christmas decorations can be replaced with the dried, woody stems of a common weed. I don't know its name; it grows three feet tall with yellow flowers resembling an evening primrose. (Refer to second photo) The dried stems can be spray painted red and white. For smaller sized Christmas decorations, the spore-pods of ferns can be used. These woody spore-pods can be used painted or plain.

Assembling the Cemetery Box: Wrap Florist wire around the middle of the box if necessary. Fill the cemetery box with plain sand or soil if sand is unavailable. Do not use sand/salt mix or dry sand. Insert the Christmas greens upright into the cemetery box. Usually, it's better to place the taller Christmas greens in the "back" of the cemetery box and work your way outwards. Select a height for the display that balances with the container the display is in. It should not be too tall that the cemetery box always blows over, but it shouldn't be too short either. The greens should be dense enough to fill the display but not so thick they push outwards either. It may help to obtain a photograph of the desired outcome and use it as a guide for your cemetery box, as it usually takes making a few boxes before you really get a "feel" for it. I included a picture of a cemetery box with this article for reference.

Insert your juniper greens and andromeda greens, then your Christmas decorations. It is usually good to have three red Christmas decorations and three white Christmas decorations. For larger boxes, there is room to add three cones. If the cemetery box is really long, you may find it needing more Christmas decorations of each color. Again, there is no set pattern. If you want to use silver and gold Christmas decorations in place of red and white Christmas decorations, you are more than welcome to. Stand back and examine the cemetery box to see if any final adjustments need to be made.

Congratulations! Your homemade Christmas cemetery box is complete. Now all you need to do is to place the cemetery box in the cemetery or in the display where it belongs and Mother Nature will take care of freezing the sand into one solid piece that will last through the Christmas season. Merry Christmas and happy holidays!