Decorating the Burress' Home for Christmas

Halloween has come and gone and it’s time to get ready for the Christmas season.  The countless tubs of decorations that have been gathered over many years are to be brought from the storage building to the house.  There are also eleven trees to be brought up as well.  Several years ago, storing all the decorations and trees became an issue, so the building of a separate storage building just for decorations was erected. 

Decorations are brought up in stages starting with the trees and outside decorations.  The outside lights are put out the first warm Saturday of November.  The trees are brought up starting with the ones in rooms that are in the inner part of the house.  This is followed up with the trees that are closer to the doors and finally the ones that are outside on the porches.  Setting up the trees is probably the easiest part of the process.  Some are pre-lit and others have to be strung with lights.  Easy part done, now comes the fun.  Each tree has a separate theme, so finding the appropriate box filled with decoration is sometimes a game.  You know, sometimes they just get labeled wrong.  Ms. Janet, better known as “Ms. Christmas” smiles and laughs when I have brought some of the wrong boxes.  She just slides them aside and walks down to the storage building and helps me find the right ones.  It is nice to have an understanding wife, cause even though I don’t really know how many boxes there are, I stopped counting at thirty. 

The tree in the rose room is decorated with small porcelain dolls, pastel pink and silver balls and assorted crocheted snowflakes.  We also place larger porcelain dolls in the tree and around the bottom of the tree to hide the base. 

The tree in the office/playroom is for the kids and is known as the “Stuffed Animal” tree and is decorated with stuffed animals that have been passed down through the years along with others purchased at assorted yard sales and other consignment stores.  For decorations around the base, we use old toys, such as an baby bed and doll bought at an estate sale, old teddy bears, an old doll of Ms. Janet’s that wears clothes that her Mom made for it, and a mixture of other assorted old toys that we have.  We also have a Lego Christmas Village on display that J.T. made.  The kids know that this is their tree and are allowed to remove and play with any of the decorations at any time.  This has allowed us to teach them to leave the other trees alone, because they have one to call their own. 

Moving on to the kitchen, we have the “Shiny Brite” tree in one corner decorated with shiny brite ornaments.  These ornaments are reminiscent of days gone by from my childhood.  It is one of my favorite trees.  It also has ceramic Snowmen on it along with red and green plaid twisted ribbon that is intertwined with a red ribbon.  Some of the ornaments are handmade and hand painted by Ms. Janet and the Grandkids. The lights are the large old timey lights.  In the other corner is another brightly decorated tree with lots of ornaments covered in glitter and lots of brightly colored ribbon that has been intertwined with each other.  We affectionally call this the red-green tree.  The tops of both trees are filled with branch looking picks that are bright and sparkly.

In our bedroom one tree has a garland made of faux berries, redbirds, bird nests, birdhouses, and other ornaments made from grapevine. This is the one dubbed the “Nature Tree” and is always a favorite among our guests at Christmas time.  The other tree in our bedroom is decorated with glass Christopher Radko and Old World Santa Claus’ and green ribbon with red polka dots.  There are other brightly colored ornaments on this tree also.  This tree sports the new LED lights that give it a different effect when lit.

The two small flocked trees in Ms. Janet’s bathroom are simply decorated with a burlap skirt, brightly colored twigs, and Old World Santa Claus.’  This room has pine cones, pine branches, Old World Santa Claus’, and birdhouses.

The utility room or shall we call it the laundry room has a small tree that is decorated with angels, rust colored balls and rust colored ribbon wound all through it.

In the main hallway is the blue and silver tree, adorned with blue and silver ornaments, along with assorted doodads that resemble crystal fobs from antique chandeliers.  The lights are the new larger led’s and really make this tree pop.

The living room houses the star attraction with a fat, full tree that has over one hundred fifty snow baby ornaments.  It also has ceramic icicles, gold balls, tons of dried hydrangea blooms, and dried rose blooms. This tree has many yards of gold ribbon twisted in and among its many branches, along with a topper made from gold colored stems.  The other tree on the other side of the room has photos of family from the different Christmas’ down through the years.  This tree is the family favorite.

I won’t elaborate too much on the next tree which is in the main bathroom.  It is actually a wall decoration which Ms. Janet made to hang on the wall to look like a tree.  It is simply decorated with pine cones and twisted ribbon.

This comes up to twelve trees in the house, along with fresh branches and twigs cut from evergreen trees to give the house that festive look and fresh holiday smell.  Pine cones are scattered and hung all through the rooms with cedar and pine branches, along with a multitude of wreaths made of grapevines, magnolia branches and leaves, and cedar branches.  Crocheted snowflakes, large and small hang from the ceiling from every possible place.  We try to incorporate as much live greenery as we can in the house by using it in wreaths, mixing it in with artificial garlands and sticking branches in the trees to fill in any bare spots. 

The tree on the front porch gets decorated with large lights and homemade ornaments.  The ornaments consist of paper towel tubes wrapped to look like peppermint sticks and different colored hard candy and packages wrapped in brightly colored paper, then clear wrap over that to add that extra zip.

The last tree, a small tree is on the side porch and is decorated with whatever we can find in the yard, such as berries made into a garland, grapevine and ribbon.

The rest is wreaths on windows and doors and garlands brightly decorated around the doors.

Christmas at the Burress’ Home is a treat and it stays up from November to February and takes about the month of November to put up and about two weeks to take down and another week to pack it back in storage.  It is hard work sometimes but worth every minute of it, especially when the Grandkids smile and say “It’s beautiful Mamaw.”

I hope everyone enjoys Christmas as much as I do.  It’s not about the gifts, but about family, friends, smiles, and most of all “The Lord Jesus Christ.”

“Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night”