The Christmas season starts early for the Abrahams, who say decorating for the holidays is not a chore, but an act of love.
By Carter Taylor Seaton
HQ 63 | AUTUMN 2007
In mid-October most folks in Huntington are putting out pumpkins or scarecrows but not Dr. and Mrs. Charles Abraham. As soon as the weather cools a bit, Teresa starts asking Charlie to bring down their many boxes of collected ornaments from the attic so she can have their house Christmas-ready by Thanksgiving. She tries to hold back until after Halloween, but if she hasn’t started by then, she says she’s late.
It’s a tradition born when her mother taught her to make homemade Christmas wreaths of fresh greenery as a girl. And it’s one that centers on what the Abrahams consider most important about the season. “I try to connect the decorations to either the religious theme of Christmas or the traditional things of family,” she explains. And although the spacious brick home on Camelot Drive looks imposing atop its steep hillside of ivy, the interior is a cheerful blend of traditional furnishings and a comfortable lived-in attitude.
A massive wreath of gold magnolia leaves, which Teresa makes anew each year, hangs on the front door. Formal, grand-scale decorations fill the entrance hall. The staircase banister is laden with a huge evergreen garland filled with glittering gold ornaments, sprigs of berry-tipped branches, gold maple leaves, gilded pine cones, white magnolia blossoms, ribbon and twinkling white lights. A matching garland surrounds the full-length hall mirror below. In the dining room beyond, similar swags top the china cabinet and sideboard mirror. The religious icon on the sideboard is nestled among a matching natural arrangement on a large mirrored tray. Teresa chooses the icy, gold, silver and white tones because they add to the illusion of a white Christmas, even if snow hasn’t appeared on time. This theme is carried into the formal living room as well, where gilt stars and cherubs dot the complimentary natural swags over and around the marble fireplace. Although the garlands are all artificial, when the weather turns chilly, Teresa gathers white pine and spruce to add the holiday smell that only fresh greenery can provide. To enhance it, she burns a candle called Mistletoe. “It smells like the real thing,” according to Teresa.
As beautiful as the formal decorations are, the real charm of the Abrahams’ holiday decorations lies in their unique Christmas trees. All convey the importance the couple places on family and family traditions. In the living room, one tree holds nothing but stiffly starched, crocheted snowflakes, booties, and stars made by Teresa’s cousin.
Each of the three Abraham children has an individual tree, and one son has several. From childhood, the now college-age children have decorated their own trees independently, although Teresa admits doing a bit of artistic re-arranging of their young efforts after they were asleep. Each has their own decorations, which Teresa collected so that when they became adults they’d have ornaments that held special meaning.
As one son grew older, he chose a white tree that he covered with only blue ornaments. His tree may have been what prompted Teresa to create what she calls her “galactic tree.” It resides in the sunroom, just off the family’s informal den. This aluminum tree, purchased through eBay, is straight from the 1950s, with pom-pom end branches, a silver lame tree-skirt, her mother’s now-faded aqua bulbs, a sequined, Sputnik-like tree-topper and revolving color wheel.
But the piece de resistance is the nine and a half foot tree that dominates their den. Although they used a natural tree until recently, this artificial one now goes up earlier and stays up later – until Twelfth Night, January 5. Complementing the tree is the long, natural pine and holly garland festooning the mantle that serves as the background for seven wooden nutcrackers. Eight stockings hang below, even though there aren’t eight Abrahams. Teresa said, “It gives the feeling there are lots of children in the house.”
Traditionally, this tree sits bare until Thanksgiving when the children are home. With carols playing 24/7, they decorate it with ornaments that are either antiques inherited from family members, or replicas of those from Teresa’s childhood. “Collecting Christmas ornaments has been a hobby of mine. It started with a bulb or two from somebody’s grandma and a bulb or two from somebody’s else’s. I always hang the ornaments my parents had in special places,” she added nostalgically. “I used to think my grandparents’ tree had the most special spun glass ornaments.” In tribute, Teresa found replicas of them.
One a quilt below the great tree, one son’s model train circles merrily. Theresa laughed, “This is the only time I try to recreate my youth.”
At estate sales she looks for ornaments – the large glass ones – from before or during WWII and up to the 1970s. Many are frosted; some are chipped. A few are new and improved, but faithful to the old styles she remembers. “We have bubble lights, but they are the newer replicas because the older ones could burn if you touched them. We even found old-fashioned icicles – the ones that hang straight down.”
Creating Christmas is not just an annual chore for Teresa Abraham; it’s an act of love and remembrance. “Some are happy memories, and some aren’t. There are people who have died but when you remember them, it makes you feel good. And when you hang ornaments that belonged to them, you remember.”
