The Christmas shoppe |
|
For four Marlborough women, Christmas isn’t just an annual celebration, it’s a way of life
Christmas in Marlborough began way back in March. That’s when four local women – Nanette Bunting, Pip Hawke, Lynne Hammond and Liz Walker – started doing the rounds of Christmas fairs, gathering stock for the Christmas Shoppe, which they run out of an old woolshed on Rapaura Road, Blenheim.The shop opened seven years ago, but the women started out in a small way, making and selling Christmas trees from grapevine prunings. Realising there was a market for Christmas supplies, they began a complete renovation of the old woolshed, transforming it into the magical Christmas haven it becomes from Labour Weekend until Christmas.
Nanette, Pip, Lynne and Liz are all crazy about Christmas. And each November they open their beautifully decorated homes for the annual Hunter’s Garden Marlborough Christmas tours, to inspire others and share their love of Christmas.
Lynne Hammond likes to go all out for Christmas, but there’s a good reason. “Christmas wasn’t something we celebrated when I was a child, due to family dynamics, so for the past few years I’ve made up for that. The whole Christmas celebration is something I do for my family in the hope they’ll take it through to their families.”
Christmas traditions are certainly strong in the Marlborough farming household. All three Hammond children – Josh, 23, Tyler, 20, and Ella Rose, 13 – would feel hard done by if they didn’t get their stockings on Christmas morning and the whole family enjoys the decorations that are put up in October in preparation for the Hunter’s Garden Marlborough Christmas tour.
It takes a week to decorate the kitchen, living area and lounge and the house gets a good spring-clean before starting. “It’s not so easy to dust once all the decorations are up – so I do it before and after,” says Lynne.
Christmas Day begins early, after a late Christmas Eve spent wrapping presents and setting the Christmas table. “Every year I say I’m going to be more organised, but with the Christmas Shoppe keeping us busy I just never get around to it until Christmas Eve. My being up until all hours has become part of established routine.”
The Christmas table is very accommodating – last year 24 sat down to dinner and not just family and friends. Often there are total strangers, as Lynne enjoys inviting waifs and strays who would otherwise have Christmas alone. “The kids always ask who’s coming for dinner this year and I have to say I don’t know, as I never do until the last moment. I’d struggle if we had to go back to just us. Christmas really is all about gathering people together and having a fabulous day.”
Though decorating her farmhouse villa gives Lynne and her family pleasure, she also hopes that her creative ability gives her visitors inspiration. “I love sharing Christmas, whether it’s food, company or ideas. I hope people go away with a few positives.”
With large areas to decorate, greenery is a mainstay, along with masses of artificial flowers, berries, swags and wreaths collected at Christmas fairs over the years. Lynne also admits to a “Santa fetish” and there are plenty dotted around. They are combined with normal household bits and pieces, such as ornamental chooks, vases, pictures and even the children’s old soft toys.
“I like a gold theme and last year I collected pine cones and sprayed them with gold paint – they are really effective. I also cut lots of pine branches and ivy and spread that around. It’s inexpensive and creates a wonderful atmosphere.”
This Christmas Lynne also hopes to have pohutukawa balls on display. “I bought the florist’s foam and had it all planned last year but couldn’t find any pohutukawa flowering. It would be a spectacular table decoration.”
“It’s fantastic seeing the joy people get… Weeks later total strangers have come up to me and told me they loved my house. That gives me a huge thrill.”
 Pip Hawke collects magazines and books to give her fresh decorating inspiration for her Blenheim home at Christmas. “I’m addicted to them – they’re just such a great way to gather new ideas.”
Though Pip’s house is decorated with a range of bought and home-made products, including covered boxes, grapevine trees, cute ornaments and candles, it’s the nativity scenes she really couldn’t do without.
“It’s what Christmas is all about to me – it’s Jesus’ birthday and we mustn’t forget that,” she says. “Christmas is about joy and sharing that with other people, not just keeping it to yourself.”
The Hawke family is more than happy to share their beautifully decorated home with friends and strangers. Once the decorations go up in October, Pip uses it as an excuse to have a constant flow of dinner guests and, in early November, she throws open the doors as part of the Hunter’s Christmas tour.
“It’s fantastic seeing the joy people get… Weeks later total strangers have come up to me and told me they loved my house. That gives me a huge thrill.”
Pip made many of her decorations herself, including an advent stocking hanging by the front door. “It’s so easy to collect material scraps and turn them into decorations.
“I’m a bit of a collector and I love greenery, either real or artificial. Using greenery is a cheap way to decorate – have a wander around your garden and see what you can use.”
 Pip always follows a colour scheme – red, green, gold and white – and urges people to try to achieve balance when they are putting displays together.
“It shouldn’t be flat. When you’ve created something, look at it to make sure it’s got depth and create height if possible,” she says.
She also advocates using spray paint, especially antique gold, as a cheap and easy way of decorating pine cones, branches, holly leaves and berries. Last Christmas Pip used freshly cut pine rounds of varying sizes as a spectacular outdoor decoration. “I laid them on the outside table, surrounded them with fresh greenery and put a candle on top of each round – it looked great.”
Christmas Day in the Hawke household is full of tradition, starting with croissants and coffee then moving on to chocolate and mince pies and more coffee while Christmas presents are opened. “We have a $20 limit – it forces you to be creative,” she says.
Christmas lunch is traditional, with roast turkey and all the trimmings and often goes on into the early evening with up to 24 friends and family around the table. Table setting and decoration is important but not as important as the talking, says Pip.
“There’s always room to squeeze someone else in. My mother was amazing at doing that – there was always enough food to feed someone else.
“It’s all about setting the table, sitting down, eating, sharing and talking – it’s wonderful.”
Nanette Bunting is convinced that Christmas isn’t Christmas without loads of greenery. She’s been known to approach local farmers to ask permission to cut what she needs to decorate her house. “I frequently pick from the side of the road but I don’t hesitate to go into a farmer’s house and ask if I can go onto their property. Greenery is fantastic – you can do so much with it and it’s cheap.”
Nanette shapes the greenery into wreaths and swags, drapes it above doors and windows and lays it on side-boards. To spice it up she adds red flowers and berries and mixes it all up with Christmas figurines collected over the years.
From October to December, Nanette combines Christmas pleasure and business at the Christmas Shoppe (housed in a converted woolshed on Nanette’s property). Stocking and decorating it begins in March when the friends start visiting Christmas fairs. “All four of us have quite different tastes so going to the fairs is fun – we each go for a variety of products.”
Like the others, Nanette opens her home for the Hunter’s tour in November, but she insists she would decorate her home whether she was having visitors through the house or not. “The memories Christmas holds for me are fond and I love decorating the house, preparing special food for family and friends and sharing at this special time. It’s a great excuse to spoil and be spoilt and be surrounded by loved ones.”
Nanette grew up with a mother who enthused about Christmas and she hopes her two daughters, Victoria, 21, and Jessica, 19, will take the traditions and the love of Christmas into their own families and pass it down to the next generation. “During my childhood, Christmas was an extraordinary affair that I would look forward to the entire year.
“We made the most of living on a farm, choosing a live tree and hand-making all the decorations from crępe paper chains to mistletoe under the doorways.”
In the lead-up to Christmas a highlight was making the traditional fruit cake to a recipe Nanette and her sisters continue to use.
“While Mum was stirring the mixture with a wooden spoon, we would all line up to have a turn and make a wish. I remember longing to be the one to get the threepences out of the Christmas pudding or the wishbone from the turkey.”
On Christmas Eve, the family sang Christmas carols around the piano to get into the festive spirit. Christmas Day itself was very formal, with the best linen ironed and put out and table manners brushed up to match.
Today Nanette sticks with tradition and repeats many of her mother’s treasured Christmas Day routines.
 Liz Walker says simple, sophisticated and inexpensive are the key words when planning Christmas decorations. “Because of the [Hunter’s] Christmas tour I try to keep it achievable. I want to inspire people and give them ideas so they go away and think, I can do that myself at home.”
The Walker house is modern with clean lines and doesn’t lend itself to traditional fussy Christmas decorations, so Liz opts to put the emphasis on colour. She creates impact with a few sophisticated decorations, including traditional nativity scenes, but isn’t scared of using funky modern designs as well.
“My bright ‘Lemon Ginger’ walls called for something quite strong and different, so I went for the silver and yellow theme. I quite like trendy, funky things and they suit this house as it’s quite minimalistic.”
Liz comes from a family that always celebrated Christmas and she has continued with the tradition. In fact, she says, her sons wouldn’t let her stop.
“Last year I tried to plan a completely different menu. One of my sons is a keen cook and came up with a great menu but my other son insisted on roast turkey, saying Christmas wasn’t the same without it.”
It’s that kind of enthusiasm for tradition that keeps Liz and her husband Alan decorating their house and maintaining Christmas routines. And, Liz says, her three adult sons – Ben, 23, Nick, 25, and Tim, 28 – are the ones who get the biggest thrill out of it.
 “They love Christmas and everything that goes with it. We still have to have chocolate money, Christmas crackers with jokes and we always go to church on Christmas Eve as a family. They wouldn’t let me change it in any way.”
Each year Liz decorates her house as early as Labour Weekend to make sure it is ready for the November evening tours. “By the time Boxing Day comes around I’m over it. I could take them down then.”
She advises people wanting to decorate their homes to collect from year to year to ensure they build up a good collection. She also suggests saving Christmas wrapping paper, especially in fancy gold or silver, which can be reused as decorations around the house.
“There are many ideas that are very inexpensive. Last year, with the recession, times were tough but you still have to believe in magic and make it happen.
“My best and cheapest idea last year was to pick olive branches from the garden and bring them inside. With their grey foliage they looked stunning and really helped to create an atmosphere.”
Story: Brenda Webb
Photographs: Daniel Allen
| 
|
| 
