This year’s surprise for the grandchildren
Susan Knox Wilson
If you think you spend too much time decorating your home for the holidays, you need to meet Tom and Mary Ann Bose. This energetic couple may hold the neighborhood record for holiday decorating – every room in their home gets a complete makeover (and yes, that includes the bathrooms!).
Tom and Mary Ann got into this festive frenzy over 40 years ago, when their two children were little and they say they can’t stop now because the children and grandchildren won’t let them. “Every year, when the grandchildren visit, they go from room to room to see what’s new or different,” Mary Ann told me. “Tom and I like to surprise them and it’s such fun to see their faces when they find something new.”
Tom and Mary Ann spend about a week in mid-November getting the everyday decorations moved out and the holiday decorations put up. Here’s just a partial list of what goes on:
* Remove all wall hangings and replace them with holiday items.
* Remove all items on tables, hutches and curios and replace with holiday items.
* Remove all dishes, glasses and silverware and replace them with holiday ones.
* Shower curtains are changed to holiday
* Window clings are placed on all mirrors and most windows.
* Three trees are erected and decorated.
* Bedspreads are replaced with holiday ones.
* Outside decorations and lights are put up.
Unlike some of us who take our fully decorated Christmas trees out of their storage bag and just plug them in for instant holiday decorating, Tom sets up his three trees (nine-footer in the living room, six-footer in the office, three-footer in the den), by hand, strings lights (2000, at last count, on the nine-footer alone) and hangs all the ornaments. Can you imagine the holiday storage space they must use up? Dedicated is just one word that could describe these two when it comes to holiday decorations.
Tom and Mary Ann also decorate their golf cart (which they use every year when they go caroling) and Mary Ann confided that once the decorating is done, she wears a holiday themed blouse or sweater every day until the decorations come down.
Happy to share their festive holiday home with neighbors, Tom and Mary Ann invite you stop by and see all the decorations “anytime the tree in the front window has its lights on.” Tom and Mary Ann are at 16342 N. Sheila Lane in Tuscany Falls.