Enjoy Your Holiday Home
Guest Post by Marlene M. Kristoff
Style at a Certain Age Saturday guest editor Marlene M. Kristoff shares luxury retail, home, and design ideas.
Enjoy your Holiday Home…. Guest Post MMK
Now is the time to create your Holiday Home!!
While you are playing “Santa,” making gift and shopping lists, updating guest and bathrooms, wrapping presents, and all…take a little time to accessorize with cheer…for yourself and those you love.
Enjoy a festive atmosphere to “work” on your holiday projects, whatever they may be. Add some peace, beauty, and possibly scent to nurture your spirit and make all a bit more delightful! The full-blown decorating can come later.
Adding a new pillow or throw to a chair, sofa or bed can create charm to soothe your spirit in the meantime. Consider lighting fragrant candles or fresh evergreen arrangements by your desk to enliven your space…and create a wonderful, calming ambiance. Scent transports us immediately to time and place…and relaxes!
Certainly, we all have favorites … so true for this season too! The world of scent is amazing: Cedar, cypress, eucalyptus, pine, orange, musk, and those that remind us of roaring fireplaces, in case we don’t have one of our own! They are always wonderful for gifting as well. Sharing a favorite is so intimate! Many have charming, chic packaging with their own snuffer lids included – think Diptyque,
Jo Malone and classic Rigaud Cypres! They are so beautiful, they become room décor accents too!
Several fragrance houses, including Maison Francis Kurkdjian of Baccarat 540 fame, have had their “talented noses” turn attention to this special time of year. Scent is ever-popular, to give and receive.
Unscented candles are lovely too…the image of a candle flicking may be transporting enough. Especially, if combined with fresh pine, cedar, or balsam garland decorating the balustrade, mirror, or mantle. When dining, remember, it is best to let the aromas of the food take center stage.
Little accents make such a difference! A bowl of pinecones, oranges with cloves, vases with greens and fresh flowers – orchids and a little glitter perhaps?
This special year, are you creating a modern style holiday? Swarovski’s little snowman is certainly a smile and whimsically modern collectible as is the iconic Aalto Vase in vibrant red! Maybe you are pulling out family heirlooms and traditions from bygone times and adding to them? Enjoy each…maybe in different rooms??
Do you love special color themes? Gold and Ivory? Blue, Silver, and White? Nutcrackers? Do you collect particular motifs? Nutcrackers? Pinecones? Reindeers? Snowmen, Snowflakes, or Stars perhaps? What do those on your gift list collect? Gift ideas abound!
One of my dear sisters collects every imaginable snowman!! I cannot see one without thinking of her…12 months of the year! My best friend in California changes her color theme every holiday…turning her home into seasonal magic! Turquoise and silver one year, reds, burgundy and gold some years, green and gold others…such creative fun! What do you embrace to make your holidays memorable? You can use these special themes when wrapping their gifts too!
It is fun to add to Holiday Collections. One of my friends adds to her two daughters dated ornaments each year…quite a charming, meaningful tradition to be handed down! Is this your first holiday in a new apartment, city or new home!! Or the first with a new baby or grandchild number three! These commemoratives are well-loved and popular…whether Baccarat, Georg Jensen, Lalique, Swarovski, Wallace Bells, or Waterford!
As you plan what is urgent on your to-do list, of course, it’s a good idea to start early on dated, limited or hard-to-find items…holiday cards included!! Sending holiday cards is especially memorable, in these technological times! Family photo cards certainly mark the passage of time…consider one of a new or renovated home…a new pup or??? Whatever is special to share.
We all deserve to celebrate an especially festive Holiday 2021! We made it!!
So, let’s get ready and make our holiday homes beautiful, so we can enjoy these special weeks ahead, regardless of the myriad of projects awaiting!
Till next week, breathe deeply…as they say Keep Calm and Carry On. Enjoy, light a symbolic candle, sit down with your tea, coffee, wine or champagne and have fun planning for this beautiful, joyous season- it is here!! xoxo MMK
Guest Post by Marlene M. Kristoff
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