Christmas for me is firmly built on nostalgia and traditions. Festive season tends to look roughly the same each year. My space, illuminated with decor and elements that have continuously brought me joy through the years, a collection of bits and pieces that seemingly breathe a sense of familiar comfort and dependability to my Christmassy scene. To repeat and recycle is to create my own little world of tradition that helps to bring to life the festive season… Without a conventional family of my own with which to build the holiday, I have come to rely on decorations and intentional moments of celebration to design a world that feels truly special for myself (and my cats). Each year, an evergreen garland draped over the doorway to my breakfast nook, the same die-cut strand of Christmas cake carrying kittens strung on the bookshelves, an ever-growing eclectic collection of vintage and modern glass blown ornaments that when placed together feel as though they perfectly spell out the story of me – a Marie Antoinette cat, always front and center, kept company by a smattering of vintage Santas, baked potatoes, leopards, caviar and deviled eggs. This is my carefully designed and collected Christmas. Colorful and electric with just the right amount of vintage and homemade. This version of Christmas, in essence, is me. 

There is a certain type of romance that is so perfectly synonymous with wintertime. The way that the sunrise dances across a foggy morning, the slumbering garden kissed with frost and glittering under the ice blue light. How dusk brings with it a hazy mist, blanketing the evenings as we drift from violet to azure and finally into a rich navy scene. These are the nights that are built for crackling fires and dinner parties boasting decadent menus and moments that illuminate one’s soul and warms from within. A time for gathering and feasting and relishing in the slower, more intentional moments that winter seems to demand. I have fallen in love with the beauty of the season time and time again. Being swept off my feet by cozy nights that follow rosy cheeked adventures, where a mug of hot cocoa piled high with whipped cream is the only way to properly defrost and crackling fires seem to suspend time with each pop and snap of the flames – Pockets of magic that are designed to melt the chill away, inviting moments of reflection, love and togetherness.