Mid-Century Modern Christmas Decorations—in The Ranchos!

Ah, the holidays. A time for giving thanks, for gift-giving (and getting), for spending time with friends and family and for . . . mid-century-modern Christmas décor! Oh, man. I just love it. Can’t get enough of it, really. Partly because I only get to see it for a few short weeks. But, oh, how it tickles me every time I look at it. And this, our first Christmas in our Cliff May Rancho? It doesn’t get any better than this.

Personally, I like my vintage Christmas decorations to have a nice mix of kitsch and class. Don’t get me wrong. I love that overly cutesy 1950s Christmas vibe. But I try to hold back, lest I end up with a look that’s taking the house on a trip straight to Tackyville, if you get my drift. And I know you do. 

Right now, in terms of Christmas décor, I’ve got a couple of things that I’ve had for awhile, some I’ve just picked up, one family heirloom and one modern piece with vintage appeal. And the pièce de résistance: a vintage aluminum Christmas tree. With a color wheel. But you already guessed that, didn’t you? 

So it’s time, dear readers, for me to introduce you to my collection, of which I am oh, so proud. As my first-ever journalism professor advised, I’m ready to “show, not tell.” Ready? Here goes. 

First, please meet our fabulous Christmas stockings, which we’ve hung by the chimney with care. Since we don’t have a mantle, we figured a swag of old-fashioned garland (from Target) would do. I actually made these babies by hand from vintage kits I scored on eBay over the years. 

 

The kits are from Edna Looney—my favorite of the craft-kit makers back in The Day. I found the “Dad” kit first and spent the next several years searching for the “Mom” kit that matched it. Once those were complete, I thought it only fair that our toy poodles, Sophie and Bailey, should have stockings too, so I looked for appropriate Edna Looney stocking kits for them, found two, and made the stockings up. Great, aren’t they?

 

Beneath the stockings sits a little fella I featured in an earlier post—a beautiful ceramic centerpiece in the shape of a golden ram. (Or is he a sheep?) Anyway, I filled him with vintage red Shiny Brite ornaments. I think he adds a touch of class to the whole arrangement. You?

 Here’s a recent find—a vintage Holt-Howard cookie jar I scored at the Long Beach Salvation Army a few weeks ago for only three smackers! Judging by the look of him and by the label, I’m guessing he’s from the 1960s. He’s supposed to be Santa, I think. Whoever he is, I just love him. And he looks great on our recently completed kitchen island next to the acrylic grapes and Rosenthal-Netter pottery. 

Next to my cookie jar sits two little candle holders in the shape of carolers—one playing a lute and the other with a lyre. No markings on these guys save “Made in Japan” stickers. So cute, no?

Next, I’d like to share something close to my heart—a Danish modern crèche that belonged to my mother. My earliest childhood memories at Christmastime include this piece being displayed in our home. I find it so beautiful—so elegant in its simplicity. I always loved it, so my mother gave it to me when I was in my 20s. I will always cherish it.

I also have a modern crèche—a “Presepe” Italian porcelain nativity scene from A di Alessi, which was designed by Massimo Giacon. 

My fabulous interior stylist, The Divine Victor Underhill, placed this crèche on the Danish modern credenza in our rumpus room next to our wrought-iron clock, which evokes a cathedral. (Genius!) I love this piece. So playful. So modern. It’s still available, if you’d like your own.

 These pretty little papier-mâché angels were a gift from my mother-in-law, Peg. I love their Danish modern look, don’t you? They fit right into our décor. Sadly, the year she gave them to us, our poodles were pups, and one of them decided to chew on one of these angels, so she’s got a few teeth marks. (The angel, not my mother-in-law) She’s still pretty, though, so we continue to proudly display both every year.

Last but not least [[drumroll]] . . . our vintage aluminum Christmas tree! This is our second such tree. The first one . . . well . . . it’s a long story. I’ll tell you about it some time. 

This tree’s better than the first, though, because it’s one of the rare examples with various-sized branches. Most aluminum trees have branches that are all one size, but the angle of the holes drilled into the center pole changes to give the illusion of an overall cone shape. It’s not a terribly effective illusion, if you ask me.

 Our pretty tree is decorated in vintage ornaments—mostly my favorite Shiny Brite—picked up on eBay and at estate sales. It makes me happy every time I look at it. It’s got a temporary tree skirt from Target underneath it. I’ve had a vintage kit for a tree skirt for years that I need to complete, but I’m intimidated by it and haven’t made it yet. Maybe next year?

Something Old is New Again: Repurposing a Vintage Pendant Lamp



Photo by Thomas Underhill. Interior Styling by Victor Underhill

 





Sometimes when you’re faced with a vintage piece that isn’t working for your space, the best thing to do is change things up. Case in point: Our Danish modern pendant lamp.




Lamp in its original configuration as seen in our old house

 

Here’s a photo of the room where our lamp used to live, and it looked great in that space. As you can see, the fixture consisted of a beautiful, horizontal piece of walnut, from which three hand-blown glass pendants were suspended, the center one a bit lower than the others. Try as we might, we couldn’t make this lamp work with the slanted ceilings in our Cliff May Rancho. Its horizontal configuration just didn’t look right.

Disclaimer: We don’t necessarily advocate molesting vintage furniture, décor and artwork, which we compare to cutting up a Picasso and using it for a decoupage project. But this poor lamp had already been through the proverbial ringer. My husband broke the middle pendant by slamming into it with his head (ouch!) when we were in the process of moving out of our last home. We had the pendant replaced by a talented glassblower, Josh Gelfand of Revolution Glass Studio in El Segundo, who did a marvelous job of reproducing the broken shade. So while the lamp looked beautiful again, it was no longer original. This made the decision to change its configuration from horizontal to vertical a bit easier for us. Here’s how we pulled it off.

First, we ordered a pendant fixture from Modernica. It’s designed to suspend George Nelson bubble lamps, but we figured it would work well for our project. We knew where we wanted the lamp to go: in the northeast corner of the room we’ve dubbed “The Salon,” where it would look marvelous from every angle, including looking in from outside on the patio.




Interior stylist The Divine Victor Underhill

 

Our interior stylist, The Divine Victor Underhill, was the brains behind this project. He determined exactly where on the ceiling the repurposed lamp would be located, so that it would be framed by either of the two corner windowpanes when being viewed from outside. Genius, he is.



Determining our arrangement before building the lamp



Before beginning to build the lamp, Victor laid the pendants down inside a large box so that he could determine how he wanted to position them. It was important that the finished configuration look gorgeous but also be constructed in such a way that the pendants wouldn’t smack into each other during an earthquake. (Those of us who live in the Los Angeles area know that earthquakes are a “when” rather than an “if” scenario.) Once he determined the arrangement, it was time to start constructing the lamp.



Almost done!



Truth be told, putting this lamp together wasn’t easy. The instructions were . . . well . . . unclear. Threading the lamp cord through the wooden balls, which were later attached to the metal armature, was difficult, because the cord had a clingy, plastic coating and the holes in the balls were snug. (We ended up having to enlarge the holes slightly by wrapping sandpaper around a pencil and then sanding them from the inside.) Once we had the whole contraption assembled it was heavy, and it took three of us to hold it—working hard to keep the pendants from whacking into each other—while Victor attached the canopy to the ceiling. We also had to take it down a couple of times to adjust the height of the pendants in order to make sure they were properly framed inside the window panes.




Pendant lamp viewed from the patio

 

In the end, all the time and effort was worth it, because, as you can see from the photo at the tip-top of this post, our repurposed pendant lamp is the star of the show in this room. At night, it greets visitors as they approach from the outside. Inside, it’s a show-stopper. We love it. And we know we made the right decision when we changed it up to better suit our needs instead of leaving it as-is and selling it to someone else. No guilt here. It’s all good.