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.