“I decided in January or February, when I could still take advantage of some of the after- Christmas sales she laughed. “I’ve gotten lots of ideas and items from friends and co-workers, who are having as much fun with this as I am.” Joan decided to get involved because she believes the Hospice Cottage is a good cause. “I love Christmas, love decorating for it, and this is something I can do,” she said.
“And I think Gerry had just as much fun as I did.” She has been gathering Christmas items since last winter, but hit it hard getting them put up in the past month. “I made a conscious effort to start in October,” Joan explained. “You think you have lots of time, but it goes fast.” The house can boast of eight full-size trees, plus a plethora of smaller ones.
Each room has a theme, from the Santa room to the snowman room, with an old photo room and Coke room for good measure. There is even a Harley-Davidson room, complete with a tree decked out in orange lights and some Harley Christmas ornaments. In almost every room is a quilt of one kind or another. Joan is a quilter, and so is her sister, and she has bought quilts from church auctions. There are star quilts, embroidered quilts and even a Harley T-shirt quilt.
The bathrooms are festive, decked with angels and pine boughs and the jolly man, Santa Claus. In the snowman room, a tree stretches to the ceiling, covered with roly-poly smiling snowmen, tufts of white, fluffy snow, and topped with, appropriately, a top hat. Snowman pillows smile up from the sofa, snowmen wink from table tops and peek out from the corners.