Word from London is that Claridge's, the city's most storied hotel, has asked the Christian Dior designer to decorate the Christmas tree that greets the guests in its Art Deco lobby. (Trimming duties were previously handled by an in-house team.) Galliano may be based in Paris, but he is, after all, a Commander of the British Empire.
The tree will be unveiled on December 1st. We look forward to seeing photos of the Claridge's tree when they become available.
Hallmark Jewellers has launched the world's most expensive Christmas bauble. The bauble which retails for £82,000 ($136,000) was designed by Mark Hussey and made in Hallmark Jewellers' workshop. Every millimeter of the 18 carat white gold sphere is covered. Over one and half thousand diamonds were used to cover the sphere. Three one carat diamonds adorn the center band of the 18 carat gold Christmas decoration. Two ruby encrusted rings orbit the bauble. You can find out more about the bauble here.
Home Depot is running its second annual Eco Options Christmas Light Trade In event this holiday season and its first ever Power Drill Trade In, Trade Up event.
The Home Depot Power Drill Trade In, Trade Up event begins Sunday, October 25 and runs through Sunday, November 8. It offers customers the chance to bring in their used or broken power drills and get 15 percent off a new lithium-ion drill. Lithium-ion is a cordless tools that offers more power and less weight. Home Depot says, "Lithium-ion chemistry is not harmful to the environment and it outperforms NiCad by as much as 50 percent, requiring less charging time and saving energy." Home Depot will also recycle your old drill if you upgrade.
The Eco Options Christmas Light Trade In event begins November 5th and ends November 15th. Customers can bring in their old working or non-working holiday light strings to be recycled and receive a $3 off coupon towards the purchase of energy efficient seasonal light-emitting diodes (LED) string lights. Customers must purchase their new LED lights between November 5 and November 15 and are limited to five redemptions. This event will also be valid at all The Home Depot U.S. stores.
A new survey of 1,050 Americans, conducted by Goodmind Market Research on behalf of GE Consumer & Industrial, found that over 82% plan to celebrate and decorate for the holidays. The survey also queried consumers on holiday decorating stressors and found untangling and stringing lights to be the biggest holiday hastles. Here are some of the responses related to holiday decorating stresses:
Untangling last year's lights was mentioned by 56%
Stringing lights on the house or in the yard was mentioned as the biggest hassle by 47%
Stringing lights on the tree was the choice of 39%.
Hanging ornaments and decorations (23%)
Getting the tree to stand up in the tree stand (19%)
The study also found a growing green trend. 24% plan on decorating with LED holiday lights this year. The green LED trend is strongest in the West with 31% planning to decorate with LED lights than people living in the Northeast (23%) or South (21%).
Sears Holdings Corp is starting Christmas very early this year. It's only July and the Chicago Tribunereports that Sears Holdings Corp has set up Christmas decor shops at 372 Sears store. They also have an online boutique up called Christmas Lane at Sears.com and Kmart.com that sells Christmas decor and gifts.
On Sunday, while most of America was recovering from Fourth of July fireworks and cookouts, the Hoffman Estates-based retailer launched an online boutique called Christmas Lane at Sears.com and Kmart.com. It also set up Christmas decor shops at 372 Sears stores, including one at Woodfield mall in Schaumburg.
Sears typically waits until Nov. 1 to unveil its holiday merchandise, said Sears spokeswoman Natalie Norris-Howser. But with the recession putting a crimp in spending, the retailer is hoping to attract holiday shoppers early.
"This is the first year we've done the Christmas Lane event," said Norris-Howser. "We're allowing customers to put these items on layaway and pay over time."
The Sears.com Christmas Lane site can be found here if you want to get a really early jump on things. They are promising free standard shipping on all Christmas Lane mailable orders of $75 or more until 7-11-09.
Aretha Franklin's famous big-bowed hat is now available as a Christmas ornament. Ornament designer Curtis Posuniak told WXYZ that he knew he wanted to make a tiny glass version of Aretha's hat the minute he saw it. The Aretha's hat ornaments will cost $43 and be sold at Bronner's in Frankenmuth, the Ritz-Carlton in Dearborn, and other gift shops in Detroit. You can also request one by emailing klassicsbykurtis@comcast.net. The designer has a website under construction at lassicsbykurtis.com.
MSNBC reports that artificial tree sales surged over 80% in 2007.
In 2007, 17.4 million people bought artificial Christmas trees -- a whopping 87 percent jump from the previous year's total of 9.3 million, according to a survey conducted for the National Christmas Tree Association, whose members are farmers and retailers of real trees. Rick Dungey, a spokesman for the association, could not explain the huge jump and said it seemed to be a statistical anomaly, although the margin of error for the survey is only 3.1 percent.
While live trees are still outselling fake ones, with about 31.3 million bought last year, all signs indicate their artificial counterparts are becoming a bigger and bigger piece of the Christmas tree buying pie.
Even though artificial tree sales are growing faster they are still outsold each year by real trees. There are expected to be 25 to 30 million live trees sold this year. The National Christmas Association dispels ten myths about Christmas trees that may help those who are trying to make a decision about whether to go with a real tree or an artificial tree.
Here's a video featuring advice from P. Allen Smith about how to decorate a tree. We used to watch P. Allen Smith when he gave gardening advice on the Weather Channel. He also has some advice for making wreaths on his website. In the clip P. Allen Smith decorates trees for three different budgets: $50, $75 and $150. Take a look:
Tiffany has some beautiful bone china, crystal and sterling silver ornaments this year including a signature Tiffany box, signature Tiffany Blue Box, an ice skate and a reindeer ornament in sterling silver. The prices range from $30 for the Ice Skate ornament to $195 for the Reindeer. You can find the ornaments in Tiffany's stores and here on Tiffany's website.
The Wall Street Journal has released this video of a billionaire's holiday lights show from 2007. This is the view the WSJ's Alan Murray captured in front of billionaire Paul Tudor Jones II's home in his neighborhood in Greenwich, Connecticut. The house even has a radio station that plays holiday music that you tune your radio to. The WSJ says they do this every year at Paul Tudor Jones II's home. Pretty impressive.
Swarovski's 2008 Christmas ornament in a beautiful, sparkling snowflake that hangs on a blue satin ribbon. The star in clear fully cut crystal comes with a silver tone metal tag with the year of issue. The 2008 Christmas ornament retails for $75. You can purchase it here from Swarovski's website. Swarovski also have a smaller $45 snowflake here.
Martha Stewart Living Radio and Taste of the NFL have teamed up on eBay to sell Macy's ornaments autographed by celebrities including Martha Stewart, Emeril Lagasse, Howard Stern, Pink, James Taylor, David Archuletta, David Cook and Jacqueline Bisset. 100% of proceeds will go to fight hunger across the country. You can find all of the ornament auction listings here. The auctions run until December 12th.
The Today Show has a video clip of its recent "Christmas Tree 101" broadcast with Ahmed Hassan of DIY Yard Crashers. Hassan gave a quick, helpful presentation of some of this year's Christmas tree trends and the latest Christmas tree technology. Here are some highlights of the products he mentioned.
Hassan mentioned the Best Christmas Tree Stand sold here at Hammacher Schlemmer. It's sleeve and lock design allows a person to "erect a tree unassisted in less than a minute, without ever having to crawl under the tree branches." For watering Hassan suggested the tree watering system (pictured on the right) from Ever-Green Seasons. As an added bonus this tree watering system looks like a present so it will only add to the holiday decor. Amazon.com sells it here.
For safety there is the no-burn spray available at noburn.com.
Several Christmas trees were discussed in the clip including a patriotic Christmas tree and a flat-back tree. The flat-back tree might actually be pretty useful if you have limited space. At the end of the video they show the upside down Christmas tree which we first started seeing a couple years ago. It's weird but it does make more room for presents and it would be a conversation starter. Hammacher.com sells an upside down tree - see here. There are also several other upside down Christmas tree styles here on christmastreeforme.com.
Smith & Hawken is holding an online auction of Christmas trees designed by actresses Julianne Moore, Brooke Shields, Angie Harmon and celebrity couple Eva Longoria Parker and Tony Parker. The auction runs now until December 5th and will benefit Keep America Beautiful. The auction can be found here on smithandhawken.com.
Smith & Hawken joined forces with celebrity stylist Robert Verdi who worked closely with each celebrity to come up with their own individual designs using Smith & Hawken ornaments and trimmings. "Every celebrity that I called to participate in this fundraiser for Keep America Beautiful immediately said 'yes'," states Verdi. "Each one of these tree designs captures the essence of holiday warmth and the love of time spent with family and friends."
A Snowglobe Christmas is a DVD that turns your tv into a giant snowglobe for the holidays. The snowy Christmas tree scene above is one of over 30 handcrafted Austrian snowglobes used in the production. The snowglobe scenes include a variety of angels, snowmen and santas accompanied by Christmas music. You can see a one minute preview of the DVD on the snowglobechristmas.com website. The DVD can also be purchased here from Amazon.com for $19.95.
Christmas is less than two weeks away and many homes are already fully decorated for the holidays. There are yards with tasteful snowflakes and elegant white lights. There are also those giant inflatables which get more numerous each year. Every neighborhood always has someone who overdoes it with too many lights or multiple inflatables or some awful combination of lights, inflatables and large plastic holiday figurines. Experts say white lights are more tasteful, but the those that love their colored lights refuse to give them up. That debate isn't going away any time soon. Where we draw the line is all red lights, which we see at least one home done in every year. Hello in there! Has anyone heard of the red light district? Still, maybe there's more going on in that house than Christmas festivities.
Those giant inflatables are still popular even though some homeowners find them tacky. The main manufacture of all those inflatables is Gemmy. They have greatly expanded the line from the original snow globes and Santa inflatables to include Santa riding a lawnmore, Santa chilling in a hammock and Santa driving a motorcycle. There also have a line of Disney Christmas inflatables. Perhaps they are going a little overboard. You can buy them at Amazon, Home Depot, Ace Hardware, Walmart and BuyInflatables.com. Keep in mind that there is always a grinch out stealing them each and every year. What kind of creep steals someone's giant Christmas snowglobe? We'd immediately suspect the neighbors -- especially if they have tiny white lights and have been seen scowling at your giant plastic Santa in a Hammock.
Once the lights are up, most homeowners turn to the task of indoor decorations. Each year the decorating trends change and what's in this year may not be the same as what was in last year. The good news is that not all designers agree on what's in. Just because you read an article that says your memory tree is "out" this year, doesn't mean it is (as much as we wish that it was). It's your tree. If your bliss is rhinestones, feathers and framed portraits of the casts of four seasons of Project Runway, we won't judge. Much. Especially if Tim Gunn as the place of honor as the tree topper.
Here are some highlights of the current crop of articles about holiday decor, decoration trends and lights installation:
Holiday decorations retailers and marketers are expecting a blue Christmas. The main reason is that this year there is "no trendy Christmas decoration that people absolutely must buy to add to their holiday displays."
Jo-Ann's trend manager Susan Atchison says, "This year, that would be a return to old world charm with dynamic colors like sapphire, ruby red and citrine embellished with metallics. There will also be an emphasis on patterns and textures with glitter, beads and etchings; and such icons as birds, pine cones, winter foliage and berries."
Tree trend: the hottest hues in artificial trees tend to follow fashion trends, according to Carrie Chen from Treetopia.com. For 2007, Carrie Chen says, "purple is the must-have color."
The Village News reports that fresh greenery and holiday themes are hot this season. They are discussing a natural theme as well. Even if you have an artificial tree adding real pine cones might help you with this trend.
A Shreveport Timesarticle mentions the use of multiple trees and rich colors. The article says red and gold will remain popular this holiday season. They also quote Tom Larance - the Christmas designer for The Christmas Store at Splash - who says, "Celadon is going to be very popular this year and a rich purple has been used a lot as a highlight color."
Hiring a professional decorator is on the rise. The article says, "One reason for having the decorators come to their homes is so customers can get the most up-to-date trends without worrying about being able to recreate the look themselves."
The Columbus Dispatchnoticed more silver ornaments and ornaments with unique geometric shapes in stores this year. "Trees and ornaments show off more silvers, and the glass bulbs look handmade. Table runners and tree skirts feature more geometric shapes in the fabrics, and wreaths boast floral bows and natural-looking decorative birds and fruits wired to them."
Newsday has an article about how larger mantle pieces are now preferred to numerous
small decorations.
Bling Bling Christmas: The San Bernardino Sun spies a shiny and glittery trend in this article.
Looking ahead: Trends for Christmas 2008 are difficult to predict but this page on Frankfurter Messe's Christmasworld site looks at several possible Christmas trends influenced by the cultural diversity at festivals from around the world. Style concepts include Japanese zen gardens; candy colors and pop art; baroque with a "a pinch of modern" and a more traditional Swedish style theme.
Need help installing the lights?
The experts at 1-888-Ulta-Lit are offering holiday lighting assistance by phone 7 days a week from 9am -5pm (CST) through Christmas Eve. Ulta-Lit also sells the $19.99 Light Keeper Pro, a device that helps you repair Christmas lights. Just don't call them from your roof like some people have. It isn't exactly safe to be walking around the roof while you talk on your cell phone. If you found it difficult to put up all the lights this year don't forget about the outsourcing option we discussed in this post from last year.
Aretha Franklin's famous big-bowed hat is now available as a Christmas ornament. Ornament designer Curtis Posuniak 
The Today Show has a video clip of its recent "Christmas Tree 101" broadcast with Ahmed Hassan of 
Christmas is less than two weeks away and many homes are already fully decorated for the holidays. There are yards with tasteful snowflakes and elegant white lights. There are also those giant inflatables which get more numerous each year. Every neighborhood always has someone who overdoes it with too many lights or multiple inflatables or some awful combination of lights, inflatables and large plastic holiday figurines. Experts say white lights are more tasteful, but the those that love their colored lights refuse to give them up. That debate isn't going away any time soon. Where we draw the line is all red lights, which we see at least one home done in every year. Hello in there! Has anyone heard of the red light district? Still, maybe there's more going on in that house than Christmas festivities.
