DECATUR - Even though David McLaughlin's holiday workshop was billed as having him sport a tuxedo, no one seemed upset when he confessed, "This is as fancy as we get," spreading his arms to indicate the patterned vest.

But he did bring the bubbly - carbonated juice - along with chocolates and nuts, telling his students, "We are not going to take ourselves very seriously."

McLaughlin, horticulture program coordinator at Richland Community College, led participants through a workshop that ended with them taking home two holiday centerpieces in one.

The base of their finished product featured a clear bowl filled with many varieties of greens, pine cones and gold decorating balls, as well as holly and hypericum and the berries of each.

But for the center, McLaughlin took a trio of Charlotte roses, intertwined them with red aluminum wire and put them into a clear glass vase about a foot tall. After weighting the roses in iridescent glass marbles, he filled the vase with water, covering the roses and creating the illusion that they were being viewed under a magnifying glass.

Mary Alice Brenner, 79, of Decatur had never done anything like this workshop before, but she was there because, she said, "I wanted to do it."

She heard about the class through her daughter Faith Brenner of Decatur who is a Richland employee.

"I kept after her until she signed me up," said Mary Alice Brenner, along with another daughter, Kathleen Freeman of Decatur.

"You are so tidy," Barbara Hannon of Decatur teased her friend Pat O'Donnell of Decatur.

"No, I'm not," protested Hannon, and even though McLaughlin had told participants they could toss leftovers on the floor, few did.

"Everything goes on the floor," he said. "This is a flower shop."

McLaughlin continually encouraged his students, telling them that floral design is really very easy.

"Everything radiates from the center. Think about spokes on a wagon wheel," he said. "The biggest thing is patience, to get it filled in correctly."

"I bet," quipped Suzanne Cummings of Moweaqua. "It takes time to get it filled in incorrectly, too."

Arlene Mannlein can be reached at amannlein@herald-review.com or at 421-6976.