Old Goat Farm
The one constant at Old Goat Farm was Christmas. Gary had a passion for Christmas that was unsurpassed. He had always pulled out all the stops and decorated to the nines. It probably wasn’t a coincidence that Gary saw Old Goat Farm for the first time on Christmas Eve. He immediately started to think how cool it would be to decorate this old house. Being a Victorian type farmhouse it lends itself well to being decorated.
peeking in the window
When I say Gary had a passion, that’s putting it mildly. Normally every room had a different theme and every room had a tree including the bathrooms and hallways. The last year we did Christmas Teas there were 19 trees in the house and 35 in the garden. That was about normal. A bonus at the farm is that there is a barn which is also storage for the 100 plus containers of ornaments, 20 trees and countless strands of garlands, wreaths and lights. When we lived in the city we had to rent storage which added another whole layer of difficulty to the holiday, running back and forth, not to mention the closest parking was up 125 stairs.
Snowy Owls
The Christmas décor is actually a collection that had been almost 50 years in the making. There were about thirty to forty different themes that Gary would choose from. They were never the same from year to year (that would be too boring). Even when he repeated a theme he did it in a different room so it was larger or smaller but still never the same.
About 2007 a friend talked us into sharing the Christmas magic with her garden club. Another person overheard that conversation and wanted to bring her club so we did 3 teas. Everyone wanted to come back and bring their own friend so since then it had taken on a life of its own. Usually there were about 35 individual Christmas Teas. For many friends and neighbors it had become a Christmas tradition.
The Garden
For my part I tried and stay out of the way. We close the nursery the first part of October so I concentrate on putting the garden to bed which keeps me outside. I use to kid Gary that he did all that decorating to get out of garden clean up. Besides the decorations the teas were accompanied by a selection of very tasty desserts.
In honor of Garys artistic creativity I'll post Christmas Old Goat Farm style. You can follow Old Goat Farm's Facebook page and starting December 2nd I'll post a room a day, as in the past, chosen from my favorites over the last 17 years.
Enjoy the holidays. Merry Christmas and a Happy New year.
Jewel tones