Step inside Martha's homes to see how she decorates for the holidays.
For a caroling party at her home in Bedford, New York, Martha stands near a 12-foot Christmas tree from North Carolina. Many of its handmade ornaments have motifs that refer to music or nature; some of them, inspired by Martha's collection of Wedgwood drabware, were fashioned from Paperclay modeling material and springerle cookie molds.
The mantel and tree at Martha's Seal Harbor, Maine, home are decorated with pinecone garlands and ornaments. The beautiful hand-blown glass balls on the table near the sofa are old fishing buoys, which Martha collects. The stockings are made from ingrain carpet remnants.
This modern tree, which has been placed in Martha's Bedford, New York living room in years past, has lots of full boughs, allowing for many ornaments. Standing in a faux-bois basin filled with deer moss and mushroom ornaments, it's trimmed with owls, polar bears, acorns, pinecones, silver and bronze balls, and more mushrooms.
For Christmas Eve dinner at Skylands, Martha's Seal Harbor, Maine, home, the table is set for six with Art Deco cranberry-glass stemware and American sterling flatware. Italian 17th-century chairs with silk velvet cushions are poised at either side of the table. The Venetian-print tablecloth has Victorian-style gold thread trim.
In Poland, where the Christmas season is seen as a time of renewal, ornaments are fashioned from straw to symbolize thanksgiving for the harvest and hope for good things in the coming year. Eggs represent the promise of future prosperity.
In Martha's former home, Turkey Hill, a small spruce is placed on a table and decorated with green glass balls, eggshell ornaments in shimmering gold tones, and wheat decorations that have been given a burnished glow using metallic powders in a range of hues, from light copper to a deep verdigris. The choice of ornaments is intended as a tribute to Martha's Polish heritage; their colors were chosen to accentuate the room's decorative details, from the gold-trimmed drabware plates to the gilded Federal-style mirror.
Martha's fantastical tree, hung with gleaming teal and mint-green apples and pears, is the focal point for a holiday table at Martha's East Hampton, New York, house. The branch is embedded in a large, heavy floral frog, placed in an antique footed bowl, surrounded with green floral foam (oasis), and covered with moss. Polystyrene fruits are wrapped in mint- and teal-green metallic leaf, and they are tied to the branches with silver ribbon. Delicate silver leaves, which are glued to the branches, glimmer in the candlelight.
These basewood buildings, displayed at Martha's home in Maine, are painted to look old and weathered. Birch twigs make door and window frames, and the church even has birch doorknobs. Three houses and the church are shingled with pinecone scales, while the rear house has a pine-needle roof. The ground is covered with moss and balsam sprigs; a little path, made from pink granite pebbles, rambles through the village.
In the corner of Martha's green room in her Bedford, New York home, a glittering tree welcomes guests.
Get the look with Martha Stewart Living Pre-Lit Snowy Pine Tree at the Home Depot.
This tree displayed in Martha's Bedford, New York, home is full like a sheared fir and has removable branches. The green, blue, and gold balls are a mix of vintage and new. There's a miniature fence at the base.
A polar bear from Grandin Road greets guests at the eggnog table during a holiday brunch at Martha's Bedford, New York, home.
Giant kugels topped with golden wreaths hang in the windows at Martha's Bedford, New York, summer house; this one is suspended above a trio of gleaming white sweets. Meringue cookies made with pistachios and dried cranberries look like snow-dusted miniature Christmas trees. White-chocolate trees, made using star-shaped cookie cutters in graduated sizes, continue the theme. They seem to sprout from drifts of sanding sugar, which hide the tape that secures silver thread holding the glass icicles around the cake stand.
A polar bear -- available through Grandin Road -- makes a beautiful and unusual Christmas decoration at Martha's home in Bedford, New York.
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