Nut balls: festive decoration or medieval weapon?

Several ago at Christmas time, when I was almost nine months pregnant with DD, Martha Stewart suggested covering Styrofoam balls and cones with nuts and pinecones. While many women experience a nesting urge in late stages of gestation, that didn't happen to me. Instead, the hormone fluctuations resulted in a serious crafting urge. I eagerly took Martha's challenge and and fashioned two nut balls, a pinecone tree, and a nut tree. I worked diligently around my large belly with my hot glue gun to create these lovely decorations.

Since then, my nut and pinecone creations have been the subject of great ridicule (and even some inappropriate jokes) each time I bring them out for Christmas display. It is so bad that I don't often get them out anymore. The nut balls in particular have been the object of most of the scorn. The family does not understand why someone would glue nuts to a Styrofoam ball and call it decorative. I've even been told that the nut balls resemble medieval flails. (Here's a picture for comparison. You be the judge.)

Emboldened by my recent success with the Styrofoam button tree, I decided that this was the year to bring back these lovely creations. So I hung them festively in the newly painted dining room to a chorus of "No....NOT THE NUT BALLS!"

Yes, the nut balls are back. Now, I have decided that to make them more appealing, I must improve their smell. In years past, they were studded with cloves and had a sweet, spicy aroma. Now, most of the cloves have fallen out and the nut balls no longer have a fresh smell. In fact, they smell like...well, nut balls that have been packed away for awhile.

So I plan to fix them up with a good helping of cloves. Perhaps that will win over the family.

Or scare off any intruders. :-)