Where Bloggers Live: My Favorite Winter Holiday Decorations
Welcome to the monthly edition of Where Bloggers Live. It’s kind of like HGTV’s “Celebrities at Home,” but…Bloggers! Who doesn’t like to peek behind the scenes and see inside people’s homes and lives? Every month a group of six bloggers share their work-spaces, homes, towns, thoughts, with posts based on specific prompts. It’s been so interesting over the years to see the different ways each of us interpret the topics.
Oh, how I love Christmas decorations! As a kid, I used to love driving around the neighborhood with my parents and then more recently with my daughter, looking at all the wonderful lights and trees. Everything looks a little magical with all the twinkly lights, bows, wreaths, garlands.
I love the beautiful tasteful displays, and I like the gaudy “everything but the kitchen sink” style of decorating. I recently saw a post on social where like Every House on the Street had a giant inflated Santa. in their front yard..so as you looked down the streeet it looked like a line of Santa Sentries guarding Christmas. It was amazing.
Dyker Heights in Brooklyn has the most outrageoulsy over-the-top amazing decorations, like all the houses in a few square block area all go CRAZY, I’m sure most of them use professional light installers and I always wonder where they keep all the decorations when they take them down. They must rent storage units just for Christmas stuff. But I always loved going there and driving up and down the streets.
My cousins lived near a street called Christmas Tree Lane (oh, come on!) and the neighbors would all decorate collaboratively, throwing strands of lights in the trees from one side of the street to the other, so you drove under a chaotic galaxy of light streamers.
My across-the-street neighbor when we had our little house, collected every plastic Christmas decoration he could find and his front-yard was filled with them come December. It added such a nice glow to the street.
When I lived in Brooklyn there was a store I’d pass by with all different colored aluminum trees – pink, silver, aqua…and I always thought it would be fun to be that person…or better yet to know that person, so I could enjoy that tree vicariously.
I tend to decorate a little more low-key. Strands of white lights, white candles in vintage crystal candlesticks tied with ribbon. Ornaments I’ve had forever…and my parents for forever beyond that. A live tree in the corner brought me So Much Joy from mid-December to mid-January.
My favorite tree decorations are some semi-transparent large cranberry glass balls I got at the NY Gift Show back in the 80s. So I start with those, spreading them evenly-ish around the tree. I think I had 15 when I started and I’m down to nine cuz. Glass. Next on is the robin’s eggs ornaments – also from the Gift Show in the 80s…and I’m probably down to 8-9 of those as well. Once these “foundation” ornaments are hung, then I start with the like “themed” ornaments – birds, fruits/vegetables, angels…these get tied onto the tree with this pretty chartreuse wired ribbon. Once all my favorites are on, then I fill in with vintage glass ornaments. My mother had all these pine cone shaped glass ornaments from the 50s in different shapes and sizes…as well as silver bells. These also got tied on with ribbon. if there were still empty spots after all these were on, I’d go to the random assortment of different sized /color glass balls I’ve been collecting since the 80s from garage sales and junk stores.
So I definitely have a system…and only in recent years have I “allowed” Katie to “help” ha ha. Her main job is mostly to string the lights. She’s tall and wiry and much better suited to that job than I am. I’m not one to buy new ornaments from year-to-year. I love what I have and I’d be perfectly happy with a similar looking tree every year for the rest of my life.
I do miss having a mantel – that was a wonderful decorating opportunity.
My favorite glass bulbs my mother brought back from Japan in the 50s. I wish I could find a whole string of these, that would be amazing.
I love filling bowls and countainers with multiples of the same thing.
Doing lights outside was a lot of work by myself…so over the years I did less and less…until finally it was just a wreath on the door.
I just love this magical time of year. It’s always such a downer in January when the trees come down and the lights go off and the world is just dark and cold.
I’m surprised at all the Christmas decorations I’m seeing here in Korea. I know the holiday itself is not such a big deal here – it’s more of a couple holiday than a family holiday. I know I will have that one day off from school…but I’m used to the whole week from Christmas to New Year’s, so that’s going to be a little rough. What do you mean you want me to conjugate verbs?? I’m supposed to be home in my nightgown on the sofa with hot cocoa and a movie! And a cat!
But I think the BEST decorations, are loved ones spending the holiday with you…they brighten your rooms…and your life…
Make sure to visit my friends to see what’s on their gratitude lists!
Daenel at Living Outside the Stacks
Em at Dust and Doghair
Iris will not be joing us this month and we miss her….Iris’ Original Ramblings <-
Jodie at Jodie’s Touch of Style
Leslie at Once Upon a Time Happily Ever After
Sally at Within a World of My Own
jodie
Interesting that Korea doesn’t celebrate the same as we do. I never thought about that, but it makes sense.
I always thought that having all the Christmas lights was so beneficial since these are the darkest days of the season. Maybe that’s why we love them so much. But I love seeing everyone else’s. For me it’s just way too much work.
XOXO
Jodie
bettyewp
It IS a lot of work. It’s much easier with a partner or child (but only if they’re willing to take direction from you, otherwise it can be a nightmare, ha ha). I just get SO much pleasure from my Christmas tree, it’s hard to let that go. Obviously I won’t have atree here this year…I haven’t actually seen any Christmas tree lots, I know some people DO have Christmas trees, so I don’t know ehere they get them. Probably outside the city. I saw some little mini Christmas tree shaped tree/plans last week at Costco and if I didn’t already have a full rotisserie chicken and the largest bag of popcorn ever, I might have added it to the cart.
Daenel T,
I’m like you, I loooooove the chaotic Christmas decorations. It just makes me happy. It also makes me wonder who has that kind of time?
My mom had a silver tree when we were kids and I adored it. I’ve since found out that she hated the tree and only kept it because we liked it. At the first sign of damage, she dumped it.
The layering of the ornaments is a genius idea. I had to laugh at your kid just now being allowed to help — I used to redecorate after my kids went to bed. Bad mom.
bettyewp
Yep, the crazier, the better! Not at my own house, ha ha, but I’m grateful for the people who DO go way over the top.
Leslie Susan Clingan
Awww, I wish I could give you a hug. I think this holiday might be a little tough for you. Wish you could find a string of lanterns similar to the decorations your mom brought home from Japan and drape them about your apartment. And maybe a few glass containers of some pretty holiday things, or pinecones – real ones – hanging from your ceiling with fishing line and tied with ribbon. Something that would make it feel like ‘home.’ Funny, or sad, it seems you, Em and I are not exactly feeling the Christmas spirit this year. Haven’t read Jodie’s post. Might just be a hard holiday for all of us.
Absolutely no conjugating on the 25th!! Rest, relax, read. But no verbs other than those!!
Have been kind of off on checking Instagram but have missed following along on your life. Will try to be more consistent again.
Thinking of you. Sending hugs and love.
bettyewp
Aww, thanks, Leslie. I’m trying to decide if I want to do something with an American friend who will (obviously) also be away from home for the holiday…or just luxuriate in lying in bed all day, watching shows. The good thing is, it at least makes it a 3-day weekend. Maybe I can do a friend thing Sunday and then luxuriate on Monday before returning back to class.
Right back at’ya with the virtual hugs & love xoxo
Em.
Oof…those last paragraphs said a lot. Maybe it’s a very good thing they only celebrate for two days in Korea. That would be a whole lotta think time for me.
I love you photos, as per uszh…they tell such stories…especially when I think of how they’ve been curated as you lived them. I imagine you having volumes and volumes of them, and wonder if they’re indexed somehow so you know how to find the picture through the window of the little house.
I greatly enjoy other people’s decorations as well…a neighbor around the block is on the Western NY list for must see dec, so we get a lot of traffic from their radio-synced extravaganza. I’ll have to include a pic of them next year. Those NYC neighborhoods look so fun. 메리 크리스마스, friend!
bettyewp
I save pictures by date. On my 2TB external hard drive, I have folders by year, and then by shooting date with SOMETIMES a bit of explanation as to what’s inside, like in the 2023 folder, there’s a folder called 2023_12_04 FS WIR so I know the pictures were taken 12.4-10 (cuz that’s the week covered in last week’s Week in Review (WIR) (FS is Fashion Schlub.) In say 2019 folder, there’s 2019_10_31 Brooklyn Halloween etc. They don’t ALWAYS have the description, a lot are just by date, but for some reason, I can pretty well gauge (guage?) where pictures are just by date…roughly…I have so many “landmarks,” it’s easy to place things – to start “where was I living,” I’ve moved so often and lived in so many places that that narrows things down a lot. Like for the picture through the window looking at the across-the-street neighbor’s yard (and did you see little Janey looking out the window? It’s hard to see cuz it was dark in the room and she’s dark, but you can make out her ears on photo left), I know it was at the Islip house…I left there in Oct 2009…and the photo categorization only starts in 2006…so I knew it had to be within those three years. PLUS, I was pretty sure I’d used that picture in my 365 Days in Islip blog that I did roughly my last year in Islip, so it’s narrowed down to 2008-2009, and clearly it was in December or January…so it was narrowed down to two months, cuz I left in 2009 before xmas decs would have been up, so it had to be December 2008 or January 2009. I checked Dec first and boom, there it was.
This is some truly scintillating content.
메리 크리스마스, 친구!!! (Merry Christmas, Friend!)
Sally in St Paul
I love that you have an entire system of Christmas tree decorating, starting with the “foundation” ornaments and going from there. I pretty much go with putting up ornaments in the (random) order I pull them out of the ornament boxes, so my tree has mostly the same ornaments but in a different arrangement each time. I wondered whether Christmas was a thing at all in Korea, so I guess having one day off is more than I was expecting but has to feel strange indeed!
bettyewp
ha ha, I’ve been told my tree decorating method is a little ocd/rigid, but…it’s my tree and it’s what I like 🙂 And honestly, it’s not like it looks the same every year, cuz things are in different places, it’s just the order they’re put on doesn’t change. AND I have more ornaments than it takes to fit the smaller apartment-sized trees I’ve had the past 14 years (wow), so sometimes THIS goes on, but THAT doesn’t, and the following year it might be reversed.
Look at me, all defensive about my Christmas tree decorating 🙂