Happy Holidays at Humphrey House

Having passed significant remodeling milestones this year (i.e. having a working kitchen), we've found Humphrey House has become a wonderful home to host our families over the holidays. It started on Thanksgiving with Jen's parents and Jay's mom's family all coming over for dinner. The event went so well (and comfortably fit twelve adults and five children) that we invited everyone back for an early Christmas last weekend (actually, on the solstice last Sunday).

It's funny how well some of the decorations we purchased several years (and apartments) ago work so well in our home, especially around the fireplace in the living room and bay window in our dining room. They look like they were meant to be, resulting in displays that Martha Stewart would even be proud of!


The best part of the photo above is our fireplace. Shortly after purchasing the house, we learned that the chimney lining was missing several flue tiles. Unless we wanted creosote build-up to catch fire and burn down the house (which was tempting at various times in the past four years), using the fireplace is just too dangerous until the chimney is either relined or upgraded with a pellet fireplace insert.

Anyway, as we took our Christmas decorations out of storage and tested light strands, we found one balled up strand that was flickering white lights. Sudden inspiration struck Jen, and she put the ball of lights behind the fireplace screen, which instantly transformed the hearth from a black hole into a darn-near-perfect representation of fire. I still occasionally find myself caught off-guard the flickering out of the corner of my eye and wondering why the room isn't warmer!

After a few years putting decorating on hold, Humphrey House is very thankful for finally being done up for Christmas. It's been so good in fact, that Santa came by a bit early to wish us and our blog readers a Merry Christmas!

Beginning to look a lot like

CHRISTMAS!
2007 will be the Year Without A Christmas Tree here at Humphrey House due to our current lack of space and general state of chaos, so I decided to try my hand at doing some decorating outside.

We also are lacking power on the porch area due to the bathroom light fiasco, so my plan was to use straight up decoration and no lights. Thanks to Boy Scout Troop #49 for providing me with the lovely pine garland and "36 double d" wreath (that was a little disturbing to hear over and over) at a discount (sometimes it pays to show up late) and to dadoo for helping me to hang it up before the sleet and snow arrived and would have made standing on a ladder on our sloping stairs especially dangerous! I bought some "unbreakable" ornaments at Ace yesterday and when Jay came home we attached them to the wreath and the garland as high up as we could go (Scott, we needed you! :) Anyways, it all came out pretty, if a bit old-fashioned. Getting me in the mood if nothing else!