Rather than decorating on a grand scale for the holidays, Chattanooga native Amy Grogg chooses to keeps Christmas personal and traditional in celebration of family and in the spirit of Christmases past.
As president of pharmaceutical group Amerisource-Bergen's Consulting Services, Amy's career has taken her all over the world. While living in a historic bungalow in Tampa, Florida, she grew used to having her house heavily trimmed for the holidays. Her gardener there would decorate tirelessly, working "like an elf" for the enjoyment of making it festive.
When Amy moved back to Chattanooga from Tampa in 2009, she allowed herself time to shop around before finally purchasing a lot in East Brainerd's Reunion neighborhood where she worked with Pratt Home Builders to customize the finishes on her turn-of-the-century-style house.
She likes that the neighborhood isn't gated but has just one entrance and exit, and that the new houses look historic.
After the house was built, she hired designer Jimmy Adams of Nell's Home & Gifts to help her furnish the house well.
"My style is a mix of clean and traditional with a bit of eclectic thrown in," says Amy. She doesn't need everything to match as long as it blends. Jimmy advised her on paint colors, hunted down the right light fixtures and created custom window treatments.
In the new house, Amy missed her Tampa gardener's decorations and hired Christmas Ready, a sister company of Painter Ready Chattanooga, to handle her exterior. Christmas Ready came out to her house, and they discussed her design ideas. "I wanted big. I wanted a lot, but not crazy," she says.
Every year, Painter Ready wraps her windows and columns with garland, and lights every eave according to her design, even programming the display on a timer. "I don't even touch them," Amy says with a smile. At the end of the season, Christmas Ready takes down the decorations and stores them, too. "They're super nice and easy to work with."
Having professionals to climb ladders and handle the technical details of outside lighting is an asset to Amy, since they do what she can't. But when it comes to the interior, she likes to keep it personal and sets up the tree and displays around the house herself. "My Christmas things have meaning. They're not usually off the shelf."
Amy is a single mother by choice, and her four-year-old daughter Sophie is at the heart of her home whether at Christmas or any other time of year. Amy uses her Christmas décor as an occasion to cherish her daughter and honor her extended family, including her father, a retired Methodist minister, and her mother who passed away last year.
On the mantle in the family room, a nutcracker from Germany highlights the heritage of her mother's family. A miniature village of ceramic houses that Amy made while she lived in Eerie, Pennsylvania is displayed on a nearby bookshelf.
When it comes to the tree, Amy's traditional side comes through. "I don't want a themed tree," she says. There are no trendy owls, no wired ribbons, no clusters of oversized ball ornaments or nontraditional colors. The tree is simply old-fashioned, something anyone could recreate with their own Christmas treasures, yet it's entirely personal. Amy can tell you the meaning and history of every ornament on her tree from the tiny manger scene inside a hollow eggshell made by a family friend when Amy was a girl to the glamorous Metropolitan Museum of Art high heel ornaments that pay homage to her mother's and her own love of shoes.
"The star is the most important part," says Amy.
Another traditional element, her tree topper symbolizes the Star of Bethlehem. She believes every tree should have one, and hers is doubly special. Her parents bought it for their first Christmas together, and it topped their family tree for most of her life.
In its near-pristine condition, the lifelong collection would be admirable on anyone's tree, but given Amy's excessive moves around the country, the assemblage is even more impressive. Some of the ornaments are valuable, like the Christopher Radko blown glass, but most are prized for their place in Amy's life, like the yarn Eskimo from her great aunt who moved to Alaska in 1947, ornaments she cross-stitched herself, those that Sophie made, and Disney collectibles that she and her daughter love. Many were purchased as vacation souvenirs by Amy's mother.
But not all of her Christmas decorations are old. A new gift from her sister and father, the Nativity set spread on the granite bar in the kitchen was carved from olive wood that grew in the Holy Land. At the two ends of the bar are a Christmas candy basket and a framed photo of Sophie handing milk and cookies to Santa.
Most of Amy's décor shares the same level of personality as her Christmas trimmings. Colorful Sticks furniture, customized with Amy's choice of words and phrases appears in Sophie's room and in the kitchen. And when she isn't traveling the world, Amy works from home, so her home office is fitted accordingly with a stylish white Eames chair and two original works of art by Sophie herself. Sophie's backyard playhouse was personally built by Amy's dad and her nanny's husband and painted to match the house.
Like her Christmas tree, Amy's house is a collection of meaningful pieces, often souvenirs of the many cities where she has lived or traveled. A giant clock face from a German clock tower decorates the stairwell. It hangs from a custom wrought iron bar made for Amy by the man who sold her the clock in Lambertville, New Jersey, a city renowned for its antiques. Near the clock, a two-foot metal tree that was transient Amy's only Christmas tree for years is now displayed on the stairwell landing, reminding her how far she has come.