Our Christmas Decorations 2006

Press here for Thanksgiving 2007

Press here for Christmas 2007


I take pictures of our decorations every year so that the following year I can use the photos to facilitate the decorating process. Having taken these for my own use, I decided to create a page for our friends and family who couldn’t join us this year. After 4 years of ‘practice’ this is the first year I’ve really liked what we’ve done. I hope you like them, too. However, if you see anything we could improve, please let me know!

Although we both love real greenery, we leave the decorations up for such a long time (over a month) that the real stuff dries out and makes an incredible mess so, this year, the only real greenery we had was the tree. The rest was either pre-lit garlands, which we augmented to match our color scheme, or faux greenery from Hobby Lobby and Joann Fabrics combined with glass balls and faux berries.

THE OUTSIDE:

The tree on the curb is wrapped with red lights and there are white lights in the branches. All the trees in our development are decorated this way which looks wonderful at night. I am still trying to get a picture of that but my camera doesn’t have a time-lapse setting.




The day after we got the outside decorations up, we had our first (and only) snow of the season. We love snow and wish we got more of it.




Birds in the tree the following morning (Look at the one in the center – it’s yawning!):


The retention pond behind the house, seen through the sliding door in the family room:




The view of Naper Blvd:




Goosepoop Pond:




The reason we call it Goosepoop Pond:




The snow was gone in a week and here’s how the house looked for the rest of the season. Notice the Santa hat on the mailbox (we have now painted the mailbox and straightened it up).




There are swags over each bay window, decorated with bows, poinsettias, and berries, a wreath over the garage, miniature trees by the door and bows under each light. All the greenery is lighted but I couldn’t get a good nighttime shot and the lights aren’t visible during the day:




The swags on the windows are visible from the inside and mirror the swags on the side windows.




Next year, we’ll put multicolored lights on the small trees by the front door:




THE INSIDE:

I have a large collection of nutcrackers which make their appearance at this time of year.
Three of them greet visitors immediately inside the front door. I love the way they are so similar yet every one is different!







The majority of the collection is displayed on the stairs in the foyer, in-between the living and dining rooms.

It was really hard to capture them all in one shot so there are several, taken from all different angles.

Standing directly in front of them

I was looking for suggestions on how to wrap the banister with lights without having it look so messy;
Press here to see how the banister looked for Christmas 2007







From the side:




This is the best shot of the bigger ones. From the bottom up, they are red king, nature king, Prussian, Tyrolean, night watchman, Russian, Hussar, musketeer, drummer, hunter, Herr Drosselmeyer, red soldier, nature soldier. The tall skinny ones inside the curled part of the banister are called pencil nutcrackers.




Close-ups of the smaller ones:













Our overall color theme is leopard, turquoise, and red. It’s reflected here in the bows on the railing:




When you enter the house, the living room is to your left. This is where we put the tree, in front of the bay windows so it would be visible from the street.
KC’s train (a gift from his father) is around the base of the tree. It goes forwards, backwards, whistles, and blows smoke!

The view of the living room from the foyer:




Depending on the room, gold, silver or copper is used in addition to the turquoise and red.
In the living room, I used gold/brass.

This year we got a concolar fir which has longish leaves and a wonderful orange scent. KC hated that tree, he thought the branches were too “wimpy” and said it oozed sap (I didn’t see any difference in the strength of the branches and had no sap on ME). When we took the tree down, however, and he realized that even after a month it STILL had all its needles and there was no sap on the ornaments, he agreed that it WAS a pretty cool tree! The shape was perfect, too – tall and thin – so we will be getting a concolar fir next year as well.
Excluding the turquoise and red glass balls, every ornament on the tree is different, the result of 20+ years of collecting. We try to get an ornament wherever we go.




Although it doesn’t show in the photo, the tree is loaded with ornaments.
Here are some of my favorites:







This one is hand made and only 1.5 inches high!





The tree skirt is handmade one-of-a-kind with extensive embroidery, 3-D ribonwork, and beading.




The windows on either side of the tree are hung with gold lame swags:




On either side of the tree are the speakers for the stereo. Next to these, on the right, are the stereo components. On top of these are two more nutcrackers (a drummer and the composer Richard Wagner) and a small bug orchestra I picked up in Germany.




The lights that flank the sofa are decorated with bows and a pair of skier ornaments:




On the coffee table is a sleigh filled with tiny presents and pulled by a hand carved moose we picked up at the Christkindle Markt they hold in downtown Chicago every year:




He has the funniest expression on his face!




On the small table next to the sofa is an arrangement of rose candles, magnolia leaves, feathers, and glass balls:




On the wall flanking the French doors which lead to the family room is another collection, part of our 1500+ music CDs, everything from opera to hard rock. We also have music from every country whose food we serve and try and buy a CD in every country we visit:




More nutcrackers, the clowns:




A Radco nutcracker candle (which will never be burned!):




The bow on this side of the swag over the French doors leading to the family room:




The family room:

In this room, the leopard print was replaced with giraffe.
The photos were taken on two different days, one of which was very sunny, and you can see what a difference the weather makes on the ambiance in the room.




The musicians on the mantle:




The nutcracker cloth on the coffee table:







The chimney sweep nutcrackers that flank the fireplace:







The book cases on either side of the fireplace with more nutcrackers:







The view from the kitchen:




And the swag over the sliding glass doors leading to the patio.




The bow on this swag is made from ribbon that says Merry Christmas in several languages:




The movie tree, with Hallmark ornaments from the Star Wars, Star Trek, and LOTR movies:




The view from the window/sliding glass door:












Close up view of our collection of masks.







The American Indian nutcracker:




Close-ups of the decorations on either side of the chest:







The view of the wall behind the sofas:




On this wall is another collection, our colored cocktail glasses, and two more nutcrackers, a Viking and a Russian nesting set:










Balthazar (nutcracker):




The latest additions to our glass collection, KC’s xmas gift from his mother (the four glasses in the front; the ones at the back we’ve had for a while):




Our favorite snack, pistachios:




A partridge in a “pear” tree:




If this page is too long for your computer and you cannot see the rest of the pictures
Press here to go Part 2 of 2006


On the other side of the foyer is the dining room.
This room is decorated mostly in copper and turquoise:




From L to R: KC and I on his 40th birthday, KC’s graduation, my father (RAF spitfire pilot)




From L to R: KC and his sister, my mother







A view of the dining room and foyer from the kitchen.
In this shot you can see the outside swag visible through the center window and the ones on either side of it, inside:




The basket on the table is made from a huge burl! I found it at the local pow-wow.
The bow on the basket is the same red and gold ribbon used on all the outside decorations. The basket is filled with copper and turquoise balls which reflect the spotlight from the fixture above them.
Press here to see the new light fixture in the dining room







Notice the balls nested in the Spanish moss?




A Santa Fairy with 3 French Hens:




The windows in the dining room also have gold swags over them:




On the wall next to the stairs are some more nutcrackers, a musketeer and a woodchopper:







The next group of pictures shows how the house looked when all the Christmas lights were on.
The effect of so many tiny lights was magical, like a house full of candles!






















The kitchen in this house needs to be redone but we can’t afford it yet so we’re making do with what’s there. The colors – mint-green walls and mauve counters – meant we couldn’t carry the red/turquoise theme in there so we went with burgundy, gold, and ivory.
We didn’t have any Christmas lights in the kitchen, so the pictures will seem harsh by comparison.










The window over the sink:




One of our collection of funny hats:

The menu for candlelight dinner
December 22, 2006