It's that time of year again. Thanksgiving leftovers are gone and December holidays are upon us.
Yes, it's time to decorate.
There are few clear dos and don'ts, such as reusing ribbons and lights, destroying family heirlooms, and bringing in greenery and flowering bulbs. But the goal is always the same. No matter which holiday tradition you follow, it's about creating a festive environment that makes you happy.
We followed some experts to find out how they do it. Event designer Jung Lee. Elizabeth Roberts, architect. Architect Peter Pennoyer and his wife, interior designer Katie Ridder, were preparing for a month-long celebration.
A maximalist holiday with a mix of tradition
Jung Lee, founder of event design company Fête and Manhattan home and gift shop Jung Lee New York, gets a little crazy when decorating his Tribeca apartment for the holidays.
“I love holidays because I love spoiling people, and it's a good excuse to really do that,” said Lee, 51, who was born in South Korea. She said: “This is a time to slow down and focus on being with family and friends, which is the most important thing.”
By the time she finished decorating the apartment she shares with her 16-year-old daughter Azul (and her 18-year-old son Jude, who comes home from college during the holidays), there were almost no walls or surfaces left. It is left as is. There are bushy wreaths, garlands galore, vases filled with branches, and a large, sparkling Christmas tree.
Although some elements remain consistent from year to year, Lee likes to do something different each holiday season. For example, there's always a tree that she intentionally made so big that it fell to a height that scraped the ceiling, but it rarely looks the same.
“I enjoy a lot of different things, so I feel like a chameleon in that sense,” Lee said. “It's like food. I don't think she likes just one dish, she likes a lot of dishes.”
Depending on the year, she chooses one or two colors for most of the tree decorations. A combination of deep red and bright pink, or orange and bronze. In 2019, her daughter requested an ombre tree, and Ms. Lee created a decoration that transitioned from chartreuse and lime green on the top to royal blue and marine blue on the bottom.
This year, she wanted to capture the feel of a winter wonderland, so she ignored the tinsel she used last year and swarmed the natural tree with spray-on artificial snow to give the branches a frosty look. She then added silver pine cones and berries, bird ornaments, and cut crystal shards salvaged from a vintage chandelier.
“I wanted something a little softer and gentler,” she said. “This tree reflects how I feel every year.”
She hung a similarly decorated monumental wreath across the living room's built-in media unit.
Lee revealed her secret to creating custom wreaths that look impressive and cost next to nothing. He starts with one basic store-bought wreath with a plastic-like red ribbon. Next, cut off the ribbon and weave in sprigs of juniper, holly and eucalyptus to make the wreath richer and more varied.
Now you can add decorations. “The trick with ornaments is to cluster them like bunches of grapes instead of spreading them out evenly,” Lee says. “It makes it more impactful.”
She creates clusters of ornaments, ties them together with floral wire and attaches them to the greenery along with glitter-covered reindeer. “You can weave in whatever you want,” she said. “It's like a salad bar.”
Extra green twigs that have fallen or been cut from trees can be reused as vases or table decorations. Whatever you do, don't throw it away. Mr. Lee said: “I hate waste.”
For example, to decorate the kitchen island, she mixed leftover greenery with holly and white roses and added some whimsical ornaments. Some had pictures of kimchi on them, which she pasted onto foam boards to represent Korean tradition. Others are in the form of elves with the faces of her children. Some are shaped like flying pigs and monkeys, the Korean zodiac signs of her children.
Lee's final piece of advice is to not second-guess yourself.
“Have fun and play, there's nothing wrong with that,” she said of holiday decorations. “If it brings you joy, it's the right thing to do.”
minimalist and creative holiday
Elizabeth Roberts enjoys decorating for Christmas, but you won't find many traditional Christmas decorations in this architect's brownstone in Brooklyn's Clinton Hill.
“I don't usually give it my all,” said Roberts, 54, who shares her home with husband Michael McKnight, 55, son Dean, 14, and rescue dog Ace. ) said. “Usually we don't have trees here. Or if we host Christmas, we often get a tree the day before and it falls down right after.”
Instead, she celebrates the occasion in a different and personal way, bringing in more of her beloved plants and flowers. This year, she placed a magnolia wreath on the front porch and planted hellebores and evergreen shrubs in containers to soften the hunched look.
“Rather than using tree cuttings, we planted live plants,” Roberts said. “They're all beautiful and can survive the freezing winter,” he said, adding that in the spring, “they can be transplanted into the garden.”
Indoors, she continued her approach to decorating with live plants, spreading greenery around the living room with juniper and asparagus ferns in vases and bowls. And she couldn't help but add a few branches of her tall magnolia to the large glass vase on her floor. This is not a Christmas tree, but a vertical statement.
“I love magnolia leaves during the holiday season,” Roberts said. “It's dramatic and I love how it stands out against the white walls.”
But her favorite holiday tradition is forcing the planting of paperwhite and amaryllis bulbs. “I love the process of starting the bulbs,” she said. “Every year I plant an amaryllis in a vase that my girlfriend's mother-in-law gave me. It sits on the table every day and I can see the progress.” It's like an adult advent calendar, she said.
Roberts also uses germination plates (small ceramic discs with a hole in the center that can be placed on top of glass vases, tumblers, or jars to hold the bulbs) to place paperwhite bulbs in water. can enter. (Spoiler alert: If you think you're on Roberts' holiday gift list this year, keep an eye on your mailbox.) “We start at the beginning of December,” she said. “And by the end of December, they're blooming normally.”
Besides all these plants, she has a few extra tricks to make your home feel festive in December. One person pours hundreds of silver-wrapped Hershey's Kisses into a large glass vase. “I put it in a big bowl because it's cute and festive and everyone loves it,” she says. “It's about abundance.”
She also has fresh lemons piled up on the table, which a friend suggested as a way to add color. “My interiors are often pretty white, but it adds a pop of color everywhere,” Roberts said. After her vacation, she uses the fruit to make lemon marmalade and chocolate-dipped lemon candies.
Her holiday decorations may be unconventional, but that suits Roberts perfectly.
As for holidays, “I love free time and spending time with my family the most,” she said. She feels that it is natural for her to fill her home with her favorite things.
traditional holiday as homecoming
For years, Peter Pennoyer and Katie Ridder have used the holidays as an opportunity to travel with their children (Jane, now 30, Tony, 28, and Gigi, 23).
That means “often there aren't any Christmas trees as beautiful as this one,” said Penoyer, 66. “I remember one year in Hawaii when I bought one at Home Depot that was pink and about 19 inches tall.”
The New York-based couple built a grand neoclassical country house in Millbrook in 2013. The ideal home to celebrate the holidays. But they always found themselves somewhere else instead. That ended this year.
“We are people who celebrate often, but this is the first time we have had a full-fledged Christmas in Millbrook,” Penoyer said.
To commemorate this, they decorated their homes around their families. After setting up the Christmas tree in the entrance hall, they dusted off the boxes of ornaments stored in storage. “It's the first ornament I've seen in 10 years,” said Ridder, 62. “They are things that were given to us, things that we collected, or things that our children spent years creating.”
Those decorations include hollowed-out eggshells that children decorate with glitter and are filled with diorama-like scenes depicting Santa Claus and other figures. Paper decorations with boy's drawings and childhood photos. Mercury glass spheres collected over time. A silver ornament that Ms. Ridder's sister gave her every year. And a strange ornament shaped like a power boat that her friend gave her.
“It's just a big hodgepodge,” Ridder said. “This is a very personal tree, and it doesn't look like it was made by a decorator.”
Penoyer ordered wreaths from Amazon to hang on doors and windows or climb on railings. “I thought it was real. It said there were about 200 balsam tips on the wreath,” he said. Very unfortunately when they arrived I found it to be plastic.
He didn't want to waste the artificial wreaths, so he hung them anyway and supplemented them with natural wreaths he bought from nearby Adams Fairlaker Farm.
Knowing that families gather around the living room fireplace, Penoyer and Ridder also revived another family tradition. The idea was to transform the mantelpiece into a miniature winter landscape.
First, I cleared out the art and decorations that I normally display, creating a clean slate. Later, a bottlebrush, animal figurines, and a small log cabin were added. The final touch is to stretch the cotton balls to recreate a snowy scene.
To get the look of a frozen pond, “we had little skaters on mirrors,” Penoyer said.
He admitted that whether skaters are better than animals is a matter of opinion. Either way, he and Ridder are happy to finally be home for the holidays.
“This is especially cool because you can really bring out all the features and decorate it,” Penoyer said.
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