Tag Archives: Christmas

December 22, 2025

The Woman Who Invented Christmas Decorating?

By daseger

Everyone has their favorite Christmas movies, and most of mine are classics from the mid-twentieth century: there is the Barbara Stanwyck double feature of Christmas in Connecticut and Remember the Night followed by the Bing Crosby double feature of Holiday Inn and White Christmas and then I turn to Holiday Affair and The Bishop’s Wife. Very close to Christmas, I put on variations of A Christmas Carol, saving my favorite (the Reginald Owen one) for last. And that brings me to the one Christmas movie that is a family favorite in our house which is actually from our own time: The Man Who Invented Christmas. Both my husband and I love this film, and if we are hosting we force our guests to watch it. It’s all about Charles Dickens and his struggle to write A Christmas Carol, with its characters making regular appearances in his study. I wouldn’t say it’s a great film, but it’s certainly a joyous one. And the title gets you thinking. Those Victorians were definitely changemakers in many realms, including that of celebration. If Dickens “invented ” Christmas with his text, did his contemporaries pile on with their visual displays? Queen Victoria debuted her family’s German-inspired Christmas tree in the same decade (the 1840s), when the first commercially produced Christmas card also appeared. Several decades later, an American woman produced sketches which seem to have been quite influential in their representation of  “decking the halls” in the nineteenth century, at least on this side of the Atlantic: Lucy Ellen Merrill (1828-1886) of Newburyport, Massachusetts. Merrill’s pen and ink sketches of Christmas interiors, in the collection of the Museum of Old Newbury, often surface this time of year as inspiration for museum holiday decorating, and were published in 1961 as a portfolio in Christmas in the Good Old Days: A Victorian Album of Stories, Poems, and Pictures of the Personalities Who Rediscovered Christmas, edited by the prominent Salem author, Dan Foley. According to Foley, the sketches were produced around 1870 as illustrations for a planned publication by local poet Anna Gardner Hale to be entitled Merry Christmas, and they are featured alongside photographs of the decorations reproduced in 1958 at the Museum’s Cushing House in Newburyport.

Garlands everywhere! Apparently Merrill also included notes on which evergreens she used in her creations. Her sketch of a dining room is the most charming of her embellished interiors: you see it reproduced regularly, and a colored version is out there too (missing the large dog in the corner). Here garlands are draped around everything, even the place settings, with little stacks of presents adjacent: this particular arrangement/custom does not seem to have caught on. While many of Merrill’s creations seem a bit tortured, her advocacy for lush garlands still lives on today: the quest to find the perfect faux greenery has dominated my social media for weeks as my own search for decorating ideas for Christmas in Salem definitely triggered the algorithm.

Dan Foley deserves his own post. A native and lifelong resident of Salem, he was a garden and horticultural authority who designed the Colonial Revival garden at the House of the Seven Gables and authored over 20 books, including three bestselling Christmas classics: in addition to Christmas in the Good Old Days he published The Christmas Tree: An Evergreen Garland filled with History, Folklore, Symbolism, Traditions, Legends and Stories and Christmas the World Over in the 1960s. When I bought my house, two people told me that he had designed its garden and while I could never confirm that, I did buy an old copy of his 1972 book Gardening for Beginners to help me take care of it, and it remains my essential guide.

8 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , | posted in Design, New England

December 15, 2025

Christmas Tipples

By daseger

I was researching the enforcement of the famous (or infamous) 1659 Massachusetts statutory “ban” on Christmas in the records of the Essex County quarterly courts the other day and soon realized that no one got fined for “keeping Christmas” but rather for excessive “tippling” on Christmas. I think if you kept Christmas quietly at home you were fine, but if you or your guests became “distempered with drink” you were not. Of course this was not the time of the excessive decorating that we indulge in now, so who knew if you thinking or praying: just don’t celebrate! In 1662, William Hoar was presented to the Court for “suffering tippling in his house by those who came to keep Christmas there” and he didn’t even indulge himself. The famous “Salem Wassail” of 1679 involved an elderly couple being held hostage by four young men who wanted to “drink perry and be merry”: when no perry (pear cider) was offered up, the men attacked the house for  a considerable length of time. Another rowdy Christmas occurred in 1671, with some serious drinking occurred at the tavern of John Hathorne, Nathaniel Hawthorne’s great great great uncle and the little brother of his far more respectable (and intolerant) great great great grandfather William. John’s ordinary already had a reputation for disorderly drinking, but on that Christmas night, witnesses swore that Joseph Collins drank seventeen quarts of rum and his wife Sarah had to be carried to her bed.

That’s a LOT of rum–whether the Collinses drank it or not (they later sued Hathorne for slander). I associate rum more with the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries so this Christmas indulgence surprised me, and immediately turned my attention to what people drank at Christmas in the seventeenth century—and later. Perry and various ciders, definitely. Beer was an everyday drink but maybe more celebratory when you turn it into something else—like lambswool, the favorite Wassail drink of Tudor and Stuart England, in which old strong ale was heated and spiced up and topped with a frothy puree of roasted apples. Did lambswool make it over here? According to Gregg Smith, author of the (I think definitive) Beer in America: the Early Years, it did, and it was called jingle. What could be more Christmassy than that?

John Worlidge, Vinetum Britannicum, or a Treatise of Cider and Other Wines and Drinks, 1676.

Nothing is more celebratory than punch and the eighteenth century seems like the Century of Punch and Revolution to me.  Punches were made and drank in the seventeenth century in England, and really caught on commercially with the emergence of special “punch houses” like that of James Ashley, but they took off in the Colonies too. So many American punches: the famous Fish House Punch of Philadelphia, Ben Franklin’s Milk Punch, Martha Washington’s Punch, the lethal Chatham Artillery Punch served to President Washington when he visited Savannah according to lore and legend. I just know that there was an “Old Salem Punch,” I’ve seen it referenced several times, but have never found the recipe. Nevertheless, Salem merchants in all trades reference punch consistently: fruit traders, dealers in silver and glass wares who offered up punch bowls, ladles, and cups, and of course spice purveyors. Citrus fruits were definitely advertised more as “souring” for punch than health benefits in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries! Though punch could be served cold or hot, the always hot flip, standard tavern fare by all accounts, seems to have been a predecessor of both eggnog and hot buttered rum. I can’t imagine a more suitable drink for the Christmas season, and am surprised it hasn’t been revived.

James Ashley’s Trade Card (c. 1740) © The Trustees of the British Museum

The nineteenth century always brings more, and more variety, of everything. I’m sure this was the case with holiday beverages as well, though most purveyors seem to advertise generic “wines, spirits and cordials” for Christmas from the 1830s so I’m not sure exactly what is being consumed. Salem did have six rum distilleries selling that spirit regionally in the first half of the nineteenth century, so I’m sure it was plentiful at Christmas and throughout the year. The first bartender’s guide, Jerry “The Professor” Thomas’s The Bar-tenders’ Guide: A Complete Cyclopaedia of Plain and Fancy Drinks (1862), is very specific about holiday libations, however. There are toddys and slings, and six recipes for the very American egg nog, including one that is served hot, as well as a British nog variation called “Tom and Jerry” which would become very popular stateside after this publication. And at the very end of the century, “Old Salem Punch” appears, in bottled form—from no less than S.S. Pierce.

The twentieth century seems like the century of adulteration for punch, which remained a favorite Christmas tipple. Not only was it bottled for sale, many more ingredients were added, so much so that it became more of a catch-all than a specific beverage. There were terrible “prohibition punches” during the 1920s, made with no alcohol at all or the literally lethal “wood alcohol”. After prohibition, Christmas punches had to be either red or sparkling, sometimes both: the red was the result of the addition of cranberry juice at best (and red food dye at worst) and the sparkling came from champagne and/or ginger ale. Fruit was added, not for “souring” but just because. Tom and Jerry was really popular in the first half of the century, then disappeared. Eggnog remained popular and was increasingly packaged as well: when you run into the real stuff, made at home, it’s quite something. One of my favorite Salem Christmas memories is of a lovely Christmas Eve party held every year by a wonderful older couple who lived in a Federal house on Essex Street. In the dining room was a huge silver punch (eggnog?) bowl filled to the brim with very frothy homeade eggnog, and everyone was always clustered around it ooohing and aaahing….and drinking! Not me: I really really wanted to, but I am a complete egg-phobic person, so it really says something that I was in such close proximity and even thinking about drinking this nectar. But one year I brought my father, and all I remember is him just standing by that bowl downing cup after cup. He wasn’t even social, which is unusual for him. I may be embellishing this a bit, but that’s my memory, and I’m happy to have it. Cheers!

The punch (eggnog) bowl of my memory, although it could be wrong.  A Christmas memory prompted by a punch bowl from Oliver Wendell Holmes: “This ancient silver bowl of mine—it tells of good old times, of joyous days, and jolly nights, and merry Christmas chimes.”

 

10 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , | posted in History, Salem

December 8, 2025

Christmas in Salem 2025: Close to Home

By daseger

Christmas in Salem, a holiday house tour held hosted every year by Historic Salem, Inc. as its largest fundraiser, has always been one of my favorite events. It represents every thing I love about Salem: architecture, creativity, community, preservation, walkability, pride of place. It’s the light at the end of the long dark Halloween tunnel. I never miss it, and this year I couldn’t miss it, as our house was on the tour, so it came to me! Actually, on Saturday morning, I was so tired of cleaning and decorating and just thinking about it, I got in the car and drove away as soon as my house captain and guides arrived and took charge: I wanted out of sight and mind and out of Salem. But I came home to festive guides and family and knew I had missed out, so yesterday my husband and I set out on the tour ourselves and as usual, it did not disappoint. I don’t mean to convey that the experience of opening your house is in any way oppressive: Historic Salem and the Christmas in Salem team are thoroughly professional and supportive and of course it’s an honor and a privilege to be included among an always-stellar collection of Salem homes. I think I was just tired (it’s the end of the semester) and done on Saturday but I rallied on Sunday, and so I have lots of photos. I missed quite a few houses (there were long lines everywhere and we somehow had to have a drink in the midst of everything) but here are my highlights, grouped by impressions.

New perspectives:

This tour consisted of homes in my immediate neighborhood but I could see very familiar places, including my own house, in new ways. Window, courtyard, and porch views from houses that you don’t live in make things look a little different. Standing on my Cambridge Street neighbors’ porch waiting to enter their very charming house, I realized that their daily view of Hamilton Hall was very different from my own on the other side. While I was waiting to go into a house on Broad Street, I suddenly got a great view of a little Georgian house on Cambridge with its side to the street which I have always slighted. And I copied a great shot a friend of mine took through my front door wreath of the wonderful house across the street, which I get to gaze at everyday.

 

Boughs and Blooms:

That was the theme this year, so I thought I would show you some boughs and blooms, including some of my favorite Christmas trees on the tour. We had two, a stately one in the front parlor and a short and fat one in back, and I love them both but I don’t think either can compare to this first amazing tree at One Chestnut, located in the perfect dining room alcove. But all Christmas trees are special of course.

You can see that the Salem Garden Club, which decorated the cute Federal cottage with the mansard roof over on Cambridge Street pictured in the three photos above, took the boughs and bloom brief seriously! Really beautiful botanical displays throughout the house. The last time I was on this tour, 20 years ago (!!!), they decorated my house and I’m not sure it was a good idea for me to have taken on that task myself this year. But anyway, here are my two trees, front and back, tall and short.

 

So many Mantels:

And I have finally managed to spell mantel correctly, a word I’ve mispelled for years. After the tree, I’m always looking for well-dressed mantels at holiday time, and there were lots to see on this tour. If you’ve followed the blog over the years, you know that I have the decorating sensibility of a four-year-old and choose a different animal theme every year, and this year it was snow leopards (though I really couldn’t find enough leopards of the snow variety so I broadened my theme a bit). They were pretty prominently featured on both parlor mantels and on the dining room table. Most mantels on the tour were a bit more traditional, and as is always the case with the Christmas in Salem tour, there was diversity in terms of scale and materials.

 

Stairways:

Stairs are also a good focal point for holiday decorations and actually the main reason we agreed to go on the tour this year was our front stairway: we wanted to get rid of an old faded and motheaten runner and refinish the treads to match the mahogany banister. It’s good to have a project for these things, and nothing is more motivating than the challenge (threat) of 2000 people walking through your house. We got it done, or should I say the best floor guy in the world, Dan Labreque, got it done: he’s been doing the ballroom at Hamilton Hall for his entire life, following in the craft of his father. We painted our back staircase too, although that was much less of a project. I must also admit that I had a bow brigade to tie these bows as even after watching many tutorials, I just can’t do that. I loved the antique toile wallpaper in the front hall over at the corner of Broad and Cambridge, and the very grand hallway at #1 Chestnut as well.

 

Tables!

I had my leopards, and everybody else had their best china and/or silver out! Dining rooms or tables are really an encapsulation of all the little details you have to put together, I think.

 

Very random details: I spent one afternoon making this bower (???) for one of my leopards in my pantry so of course I have to feature it; what a light fixture at 1 Chestnut, my Cambridge Street neighbors spent over a year reconfiguring an addition at the back of their house and the results are stunning–here are some of the artifacts they found during the process and a great bundt pan display, swag from Historic Salem, which gave every homeowner on the tour one of these lovely paintings by Simeen Brown, just a nice simple wreath to close the post.

6 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , | posted in Salem

December 23, 2024

Merry Christmas from Salem

By daseger

No deep dive here, just some photographs of Salem at Christmas time: my neighborhood, my house, other houses. It’s been a tough semester and a tough month, and I’m tired. I did Thanksgiving, so my brother and brother-in-law are on for Christmas and we’re off to the Hudson River Valley tomorrow. Many of us in Salem have experienced a loss today, and these pictures make me happy: I hope they give pleasure to you as well. Salem is really beautiful in December in general and at Christmas time in particular: at that other holiday she is wearing a costume and not her true self.

Love this wreath!

We were fortunate to be invited to a dinner at the Pickering House before the Hamilton Hall dance, which has been held since at least World War II, with similar events before—way before! I hope these two ladies don’t mind their inclusion in this post, I was just so impressed by their gowns–and their purses!

Home–and away we go. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

P.S. MANTELS! Thanks, Patricia.

9 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , | posted in Salem

December 9, 2024

Christmas in Salem 2024

By daseger

This past weekend was very busy: there was the annual Christmas in Salem tour of historic homes decorated for the holidays, Christmas teas at the Phillips House, and my new neighbors hosted a very festive party across the street. I love the Christmas season in Salem: it commences a period of relative radio silence by the witch-profiteers although we definitely have more dark stores than light in Salem now. The Christmas in Salem tour is venerable: it has been the major fundraiser for our even more venerable preservation organization, Historic Salem, Inc. (HSI), for decades, and before that it was run by the Visiting Nurses Association. It’s always been the best alternative/corrective to Witch City and it is popular: it’s a tradition for many Salem residents but also visitors from across New England. I’ve served as a guide or house captain for years, I’ve had two houses on the tour, and I seldom miss it: a couple of years ago I was housebound with sciatica and miserable, both because I was in pain and missing out. It’s a huge effort, both by Historic Salem in general and its Christmas in Salem committee in particular, and of course by the homeowners; an amazing expression of generosity and community by all. The tour varies its neighborhood focus and theme every year and this year it was centered on the core of the McIntire Historic District, Federal and Essex Streets, and named “Brick by Brick”. This name wasn’t entirely clear to me (because I was thinking brick houses) until I got the program, which highlights Salem’s brick sidewalks, which have been quite endangered up to the formation of Historic Salem’s Brick Committee and are now experiencing some much-needed restoration. So that’s another initiative to thank HSI for.

The Tour headquarters was the Assembly House, one of the Peabody Essex Museum houses which I haven’t been in for years. So I was excited, but it seems to have lost much of the texture which I remembered, so we didn’t linger long. The second-floor landing was always one of my favorite architectural features and that seemed the same. In general, the Federal Street houses were earlier and the Essex Street houses “Victorian,” with the exception the Corwin House, of course. There were several public buildings on the tour (besides the Corwin House, the First Church, Grace Church, and the Salem Athenaeum) but I skipped them in the interests of time. I heard they were decorated beautifully though, my loss! The decorations get ever more creative with each passing year: you might notice a cocktail subtext below.

Well, the pictures above represent most, but not all, of the tour houses on Federal and its off streets. The other thing that has always struck me about the Christmas in Salem tour is the value encompassed. We’re not talking about a mere six or seven buildings, but rather 14, along with a “bonus second visit to favorite house.” The value of this tour is also based in the sheer quality and diversity of the architecture: it’s always a great representative of the sheer quality and diversity of Salem’s architecture. And so on to some really stately Revival homes on Essex: an Italianate house with its own hill (always impressive) and the Balch House, Salem’s most distinguished Second Empire structure, which served as the city’s American Legion headquarters for much of the twentieth century (see black & white photo below, from PEM’s Phillips Library). These are very exuberant houses which have recently been “refreshed” and it was great to see them both so shiny and festive.

 

8 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , | posted in Architecture, Salem

December 22, 2023

Holiday Tables

By daseger

If I’m hosting for Christmas or any other holiday, I spend more time thinking about the table than the menu: much more time. I love setting the table, and once I attain my “vision” we’re all relegated to eating in the kitchen, no matter how many days before the big meal. Here it is, December 22, and I am hosting Christmas dinner and the table is not set! I just finished my grading, however, so I’ll get it together. I have a different animal theme every year for Christmas decorating and some animals are easier than others. Obviously deer are super easy, and I’ve also done bears, foxes, sheep, swans, pheasants, mice and hedgehogs—and more. This year, I chose lions, and they have been challenging! But I do have these great lion placemats which are everything. I’m not quite ready, however, so here’s a succession of holiday tables from both sides of the Atlantic.  First we have some Scottish tables from my trip last month, and then a succession of tables from Strawbery Banke in Portsmouth, NH: every year they have a Candlelight Stroll among and within their historic houses, featuring a sweeping and colorful view of holidays past.

Scotland: first up are parlor, dining room, and kitchen tables in the Georgian House in Edinburgh’s New Town, owned and operated by the National Trust for Scotland, then a Georgian “everything” room in another National Trust House, Gladstone’s Land. You’re looking at a table, but a lot more is going on in this room–it reminded by of another Georgian room, just below, in the Concord Museum, which I just visited last week. Back in Edinburgh, nothing is more festive than a pub table, and the city is in the midst of major gin craze. The Jolly Botanist is a great gin bar that we really enjoyed.

Back Home (well in Portsmouuth): Strawbery Banke is a museum “neighborhood” of historic houses, some of which were located in the Puddle Dock area of Portsmouth, others which were moved there when the museum was founded in the 1960s. It’s always been a part of my life, as I grew up across the river in southern Maine. The annual Candlelight Stroll features decorated houses with reenactors, representing different periods and stratas of society. The opulent Goodwin Mansion, first up below, was built in 1811, but it is interpreted as an 1870s house. Below its dining room is that of the Chase House, a Georgian structure that is interpreted c. 1818, followed by that of the Rider-Wood House (1830s), the Shapiro House (1919) and the time-capsule 1950s kitchen of the Pridham House.

My table is not set yet but here are the lions, ready to go! Best wishes for a restorative and merry Christmas.

 

2 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , | posted in Culture, History, Houses

November 30, 2023

A Scottish Photo Feast for St. Andrew’s Day

By daseger

I’m just returned from a long trip to Scotland, during which I took hundreds of photographs, and today marks the feast of the Scottish patron Saint Andrew, so that’s the post! I promise more substantive essays in the future, but I have re-entered at the busiest time of the semester and my Salem’s Centuries manuscript is due in just over a month, so these photos will have to suffice for now. We spent most of our time in Edinburgh, but also covered a wide swath of south central Scotland, including Glasgow, Oban and Fort William in the west, and St. Andrews in the east. I spent my junior year abroad at that city’s university, and while I’ve been back several times since, it’s always great to go back. I really explored Edinburgh on this trip, both Old Town and New and some adjoining neighborhoods, so it was hard to pick my favorite photos of the capital, but I think I’ll favor the light. All the cities and towns we visited were aglow with Christmas trim, and every other day the sun bathed the land-and street-scapes for several intermittent hours: with moody mornings and darkness descending at 4pm, the light is very precious.

In Edinburgh:

Interior shots are of two National Trust properties: Gladstone’s Land in the Old Town and the Georgian House in the new. Of course the modern embellished building is the relatively new Scottish Parliament, about which I learned a lot. Christmas markets and fairs in every available green space!

 

Glasgow:

Glasgow Cathedral and Council Chambers are quite something, as are the Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery at Glasgow University. Charles Rennie McIntosh immersion is possible.

 

Western Coast from Oban to Fort William and through the Highlands:

 

 

Fife villages on the East Coast, and St. Andrews:

So, lots more to write about, including whiskey, GIN, Jacobites, McIntosh, Princes Street, old and new architecture, the power of Outlander, closes, courts and corridors, and hedgehogs, but this postcard post will have to do for now: Happy Feast of St. Andrew day!

8 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , | posted in Culture, Travel

December 11, 2022

Christmas Shopping in Salem: the Macabre and the Merry

By daseger

I try to shop local whenever possible: compared to decades past, it’s not difficult as Salem seems to have become as much of a shopping destination as a dining one. But you’ve got to pick a side: goth or gleeful? dark or bright? macabre or merry? Krampus or Santa Claus? Because of the ever-increasing exploitation of the tragedy of 1692 and its contrived connection to Halloween, “witchy” shops, an aesthetic very broadly defined in Salem, have proliferated over the past few years, reaching the level of self-sustaining demand. This article asserts that Salem has become an “alt fashion hotspot” for those seeking gothic garb, and explains the supply and the demand far better than I can! Maybe you can have it both ways—there are certainly some Salem shops that manage to merge the macabre and the merry quite creatively—but with a list consisting of babies and mostly middle-aged people, I’m squarely in the Merry Christmas camp.

It’s difficult to take photographs of shop windows in the daytime, but Witch City Consignment’s windows represent Salem Christmas shopping well: all is bright but there are looming monsters!

So let’s take a walk down Essex Street from the Witch House to the Hawthorne Hotel and I’ll point out some of my favorite shops along the way and on the side streets. Remember my “merry” bias: this is not an all-inclusive tour! I’m so down on witch-kitschiness that I’ve sworn not to patronize businesses that even have “Witch City” in the name, but I have to make occasional exceptions. I can’t resist Witch City Consignment: there’s so much to see and buy there, though generally I end up buying more things for myself rather than friends or family. I can’t resist the Salem stuff and right now I’m into “apothecariana” or whatever you call it: I love these turn-of-century gold-lablel pharmacy bottles and they are on sale! Witch City Wicks across the way has great candles: I’ve been buying them from the pre-brick-and-mortar days. This section of Essex Street is pretty gothy with the looming Vampfangs and the new Blackcraft, a southern California company which transformed a Colonial Revival bank building into an all-black emporium with a red witch descending from the center ceiling medallion. I skipped the former and went into the latter, for a very brief spell. There’s a lot of black in the store, but very little craft: strictly made in China as far as I could tell. On to Town House Square past the Christmas Tree in Lappin Park.

Witch City Consignment wares; nice to see the cheery windows of the Gulu-Gulu Cafe after I left Blackcraft.

I craved more craft and more merry after Blackcraft, so I headed right for a trio of shops on the corner of Washington and Front Streets owned by a very creative and entrepreneurial couple: the brand new Spruce Home, Oak+Moss, and Roost & Company. Much shopping ensued: these shops have something for everyone, and their wares are unique yet usable, tactile and textural, both decorative and utilitarian. I scooped up napkin rings and onesies, managed to resist all manner of cocktail culture, but had to have my very own merry & bright banner!

Spruce Home and Oak+Moss.

There is great shopping on Front Street (particularly at J.Mode for women’s clothing) which runs paralell to Essex on either side of Derby Square, but I did so well at the Spruce/Oak/Roost triumvirate that I headed straight for Emporium 32 on Central, before getting back on Essex. Here we have the curation of yet another creative couple, who have packed their tin-ceilinged shop with more whimsical wares, including nostalgic Christmas decorations, jewelry, prints, very visual books, barware and outerware. It’s a great accessory shop, and also a wonderful place to shop for men with hats, gloves, and shaving stuff galore. Plus it’s just a merry place, which always cheers you up, no matter the season (and they always have the best windows, in every season). At this point, I have to admit that I had my husband with me and we had nearly reached his shopping capacity, so it was time to break for lunch at the tavern at the Hawthorne Hotel (and drinks, of course: I had this delicious blood orange & bourbon cocktail, below). 1925, the latest venture from the Emporium entrepreneurs, will be opening in the corner shop of the Hotel in the new year.

Shopping at Emporium 32 and drinks (+ food and a pointsettia Christmas tree) at the Hawthorne Hotel.

With sustenance, my husband declared he could do two more shops and no more, so we set off for the Peabody Essex Museum shop and Diehl–Marcus & Company, a lovely store located in a Bulfinch building almost across from Emporium 32 on Central Street. Even when I was furious with the PEM for removing the Phillips Library to Rowley (five years ago!) I still shopped in its lovely shop: its buyers have always found the best things. This particular year, the PEM shop seems to have embraced all things Salem, commissioning little wooden replicas of all of its buildings from The Cat’s Meow. I want them all and I couldn’t possibly choose, so I “settled” for some Ropes Mansion placemats, among other items. There’s no question that more damage would have been done if my husband wasn’t with me, and I will have to return to do some actual shopping for others. It does seem a bit odd to me to be featuring all these buildings that are not presently open to the public, particularly the empty Plummer Hall, long home to the Phillips Library, and its adjoining and also-dark Daland House: maybe these little houses are a sign of future openings?

All the PEM houses! The Museum even installed a ye olde Salem Christmas neighborhood in the windows of one of its empty storefronts on Essex Street.

After Diehl–Marcus, my husband dropped out and I was on my own in the shops of Church Street and at Pickering Wharf: the former is a sparkling street of signs while the latter is looking a bit shopworn, I must admit (no fault of the shopowners but rather of their landlord, of course). But I always like to buy a few things at the Marble Faun at the Wharf, a book and gift shop for anglophiles and Hawthorne-philes (more books at the PEM shop and Wicked Good Books on Essex Street), and I knew that Joe’s Fish Prints had some cute coffee cups which would work for everyone on my list except the babies.

Candles (+ great tea and soap and lots of other things) at Diehl-Marcus, fish impressions at Pickering Wharf, very pretty hand-crafted jewelry at Jenni Stuart Fine Jewelry and more apothecary bottles at Hive and Forge/Red Antler Pharmacy. This combined and eclectic shop also features a lot of taxidermy, so be forewarned if that’s not your thing, but also the crafts of 30+ makers.

I realize that my shopping guide is a bit late and long, but I’d like to mention a few online local makers and sellers as well: please add more in the comments!

Kamillascrochet for cute hats, made very speedily.

JandJGraphicsLLC for merry and bright calendars with local scenes.

EVArtandDesign for merry and bright “windows of Salem” digital illustrations.

Chloesgoodstuff for cat drawings.

WidowsWeedsAntiques for interesting ephemera.

 

7 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , | posted in Culture

December 4, 2022

Christmas Trim

By daseger

It’s going to be a super busy December, so I got a jump start on decorating my own house: we have eight fireplaces with mantles plus several other surfaces which “require” adornment so there’s a lot of sorting out and arranging to do. I have two rules, or should I say practices, which I observe for holiday decorating: I don’t bring greenery in until just before Christmas and I always choose a creature theme. Down in my basement, there’s a little room with shelves full of creatures of Christmases past: swans from last year, and then bears, foxes, sheep, hedgehogs, rabbits, mice, cats and lots of deer, of course. This year is all about pheasants, as I found some Royal Copley ones that I really liked this fall and wanted to keep them out: I’ve glitzed them up a bit and added some gilded companions. I love natural greenery but I can’t stand to see it fade, so usually I wait until the last possible moment to mix it in with my other decorations. This year I hedged on the rule, and added a few greens because I wanted some warmth and contrast, but more is coming! Someday I might go for simpler decorations but my holiday aesthetic is still pretty much all about abundance. The exception to the greenery rule has always been the Christmas Tree, but over the last few years we’ve had trees die on us before Christmas, so now we’re going to wait for that too. There’s nothing more depressing than a crispy Christmas tree, in my opinion.

Downstairs mantles, the “mantle” in the kitchen, measuring-cup creatures from Anthropologie and my pantry. The glittery squirrels always come out: they’re in the library. By the time I got to the second floor, I was running out of pheasants, so substituted a lowly duck. (There’s a few peacocks mixed in with the pheasants downstairs too, because peacocks). Last year’s swans on the shelf in the basement.

This past weekend was the Christmas in Salem tour, the major fundraiser for Salem’s historic preservation organization, Historic Salem Inc. It’s in a different neighborhood every year, and this year was all about North Salem, encompassing Buffum and Dearborn Streets, on either side of North Street, and a few homes off Dearborn. It was not at all a “colonial” tour, rather it had a bit of a retro feel to me despite the presence of many later nineteenth-century homes, including the gorgeous Queen Anne Ropes House. There was also a stunning 1915 bungalow on the tour, an unusual style for Salem. Gratitude and congratulations to all the homeowners: it’s quite an effort to open your home to 1000 people (believe me, I’ve done it twice). Christmas in Salem always puts me in the holiday mood: it’s such a lavish display of generosity and creativity and cheer: hopefully I’ve captures some semblance of these things in the pictures!

At the Ropes House: love, love, love the button garlands!!! Below: my friend Bradley guiding us through the kitchen in his Princess Diana black sheep sweater and everyone’s favorite “simple” decoration: red branches and floating candles.

Below: lots of textures and nooks and crannies on this tour! These are the details that gave me the retro feel.

What we want to see: table settings, a wreath, and a Christmas tree.

I hope all these homeowners are having a drink just about now (Sunday @5pm)!

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December 27, 2021

Christmas at Home and Away

By daseger

Our Christmas was Covid-impacted like everyone else’s, but it ended up being just lovely, with most of our time spent with my brother and brother-in-law in Salem eating, drinking, playing bad board games and watching movies. We went up to York Harbor for Boxing Day with my parents, but we’re not going down to New Jersey to see my husband’s family, so this is a rare holiday season without long-distance travel for me (with the exception of last year, of course), and I’m enjoying lounging around. Because we knew we would be primarily stationary on Christmas weekend, we snuck in a quick trip down to Newport to see the decorated mansions (the Elms, Marble House, and the Breakers) as well as the streets and streets of colonial houses of every color. So all in all, a convivial, colorful, and (so-far) Covid-free holiday! I feel very fortunate.

Christmas at Home (with swans this year—and lots of cats, our Trinity & Tuck, and my brother’s Clementine).

Newport! I really prefer the smaller colonial houses, but when you’re in Newport you’ve got to see some mansions, especially at Christmas time. We had a lovely dinner at the White Horse tavern, and just walked by and through so many houses. Perfect little break. I think I have the many, many Christmas trees and mantles in order of their location—-first The Elms, then Marble House, then the Breakers—but there were just so MANY I might have mixed some up.

The Elms, 1901.

Marble House, 1888-1892.

The Breakers, 1895.

As glittering as they are at this time of year in particular, these mansions are a bit over the top, so I’m ending with the simple themed trees in the basement kitchen of the Breakers (hedgehogs & mushrooms! I’ve been wanting to do those Christmas themes myself) above and my very favorite Newport house and the First Parish Church in my hometown of York, below. Happiest of holidays to everyone.

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