Christmas Trees Past ...

tons of lights and natural greenery outside at Darlington House!

Most of the family Christmas trees we've put up over the years have been pretty traditional. But once we gave up our annual traditional decorating, nostalgia flew up the chimney and whimsey took over!

I do not have pictures of all our Christmas trees past. Just the ones I uploaded to Facebook. For instance, as part of our annual nine tree extravaganza, we would always put a tree up in the second floor guestroom when guests stayed over the holidays. I do not seem to have an example of one of those on Facebook. But I have plenty more to peruse as I stroll down memory lane before I unveil our first Christmas tree in South Africa.

First, in the days of yore ...


Our white goosefeather tabletop tree in the downstairs study had a winter wonderland theme with snowflakes, snowmen, skaters, sleds and skiers.

The antique goosefeather tabletop tree in the living room was an "advent tree". When the boys were little, they would take turns hanging one of the tiny German glass ornaments on the tree every day during Advent until the topper was placed on Christmas Eve. It was decorated with real candles which we lit on Christmas Eve for about a minute to say a prayer before bedtime!

The live balled tree in the parlor had a train theme. (Our house was formerly a train station in the 19th century.) The ornaments were all train stations, trains, and Santa train conductors. It was strung with a Christopher Radko glass train garland and lit with plastic train lights. I used tons of tinsel on this tree and the tartan angel held a little golden train. I even made the quilted and appliqued train Christmas tree skirt to disguise the root ball. There was a vintage train station under the tree and the manger on the trunk was from my mother where it sat under my family's trees growing up. It probably came from the Ben Franklin's on Ridge Road. I loved it!

This faux tree was decorated with all the ornaments Alex and Nick made over the years at Pingry, in nursery school at St. Paul's and in Sunday school at St. Helen's. It was the only tree lit with big multi-colored bulb lights. (I preferred tiny white lights.) It was set up on the second floor landing between the boys' bedroom hallway and our master suite wing. Instead of a creche that usually sits under our trees, this one had a Snow Village Yankee Stadium! The Cathedral in the Bronx.

Our main tree was in the 14 foot tall vaulted conservatory. It was always a blue spruce. The ornaments were family favorites collected over many, many years from many, many places. Most of them were not even meant to be Christmas ornaments at all but I hung them anyway. The topper was an angel that was given to us at my bridal shower! The dress looked amazingly like my Laura Ashley wedding dress. I strung 60 yards of cranberries and popcorn for this tree and also hung slices of tree trunk cut from our Christmas trees over the years.

Underneath was a manger from Jerusalem and wooden shoes we bought at the Floriade festival in Holland when Vince had an apartment in Utrecht there for work many years ago. Little shoes that fit the boys at the time and a pair of lacy carved "wedding" wooden shoes I had made for me. After I complained that I couldn't find a Christmas tree skirt to fit the 12 foot tree, my sister and niece made this ginormous velvet-backed one for me using Ralph Lauren fabric of tartan and cabbage roses.

The Fraser fir in the dining room was tall and skinny, the way I like my Christmas trees; Vince likes them fat like the conservatory tree.

I used a lot of white, silver and gold ornaments on this tree. Mostly angels and bells. The topper was a Dresden angel we bought at the Nuremberg Christmas Market where it is the unique symbol of the market. The garland was made from strings of faux pearls. I made the needlepoint tree skirt with a Spode Christmas tree design to match the Spode Christmas china we used throughout the holiday season in the dining room. The manger was from Paris.










I also hung silver-framed pictures of my sons sitting on Santa's lap over the years on the dining room tree.This picture was taken at Macy's in Herald Square. One good-looking Santa!

I always put a rosemary tree in the kitchen to snip for holiday cooking. I made "ornaments" of bouquets garni with mulling spices for cider or soup herbs in cheesecloth sacks.This one was a duplicate rosemary tree my garden club donated to Reeves-Reed Arboretum's Silent Auction when I worked as an event planner there.

Sometimes I would hang cookies and mini-candy canes too. They would never last until Christmas. Surrounding or hanging from the tree were fragrant clove-studded pomander balls.

boxwood topiary

I made many boxwood topiaries in mint julep cups for the downstairs study ...


















... and the dining room .

After Vince took his apartment in San Francisco and we stopped the multiple tree decorating regime, I put this pink goosefeather tree up in our bedroom at home to keep me in the spirit while my family was scattered over the holidays.

Marie Antoinette and Paris ruled! Lots of "girly" decorations, vintage millinery flowers and chandelier drop ornaments. I topped it with the vintage cake topper we used at our wedding.

Much to his chagrin, I never took it down! Until we had to pack up for our move to South Africa. Coincidence?

There were plenty of trees decorated outside as well for the birds. And unfortunately for the squirrels too.
















The bird trees were hung with bird seed, suet and peanut butter in clementine "baskets."

The ancient honeysuckle arbor was a favorite nesting spot for the birds.

Everything is just more Christmasy in the snow.

After our sons went off to college, we "simplified" Christmas. We only put up one simple tree in the parlor. (Not counting the pink goosefeather which was still up in the master bedroom of course.)

For a few years we adopted a simple Colonial Williamsburg theme to go along with it. I made many fruit and boxwood topiaries for the butlers' pantry ...












 for the dining room ...

... and for the kitchen table.












One year we spent Christmas at our ski condo in Vermont. We didn't put a real tree up at our house in NJ at all. Instead we decorated the outside with white birches logs and made this "tree" using branches from some storm-downed birch trees on our property for a Vermont-inspired Christmas.






 

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We put a real Vermont Christmas tree up outside on our condo's second floor deck.















We decorated it very simply with silver balls and white lights ....

and Vermont provided the real snow frosting!














Christmas dinner in Vermont!

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Another year we had a woodland animals theme. A boxwood balled tree-shaped shrub in a vintage wheel barrow on the patio outside the conservatory.

real snow and faux icicles on the greenhouse

on the conservatory porch

... with burlap Christmas tree skirts and bittersweet.

conservatory porch peaking out from the street

The birds loved the bittersweet!

This was another year we would not be spending Christmas at home. So we flew our woodland animal-inspired mini Alberta Spruce tree with us to Lake Tahoe for our ski holiday!












... and surrounded it with presents on Christmas morning in our ski lodge room.

















Don't be silly ... we couldn't fit a full size tree in our luggage on the plane and there was one in the lodge dining room / great room anyway!

Christmas 2012

Last year we were in the final throes of packing and moving. All the decorations were culled and sorted and stored away for another day in the very distant future.

A French wine bottle drier from our greenhouse stood in as our Christmas tree in 2012. I usually hung gardening tools from it in the greenhouse throughout the year but now it was being used to hold wine bottles as God intended. Hung with 250+ green wine bottles borrowed from the Fanwood Recycle Center. The topper was an upside-down demijohn filled with white lights!

More wine-themed trees. A cork reindeer in a cork forest. Vince was already living in South Africa. I had a lot of time on my hands!











And another greenhouse refugee. A round galvanized seedling stand with white poinsettias and more white lights.

It may have been spartan on the inside but it was all lit up on the outside!

 Finally, it's Christmas present.

And here is our 2013 South African tree decorated for Christmas!


                                                           Psych ....  next blog post!