Holiday house

After spending a night in the company of ghosts, and getting a terrifying peek at his dismal future, Ebeneezer Scrooge, the hard-hearted curmudgeon of Dickens’ classic, “A Christmas Carol,” becomes a new man. “I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year,” he vows. Marie Widmyer, of Coeur d’Alene, keeps Christmas all year, every year.

Widmyer loves everything to do with the holiday and keeps several favorite reminders in sight winter, spring, summer and fall.

The rambling two-story home she shares with husband Steve and their four children was originally an officer’s quarters at Farragut Naval Base during the Second World War. It was moved to its present location, two blocks from Lake Coeur d’Alene, in the 1950s, after the base was dismantled.

Now a cozy family home with papered walls, overstuffed chairs upholstered in rich floral fabrics, hutches full of china and Widmyer’s collection of clocks, the house wears red and green all year.

Around Thanksgiving each year, yards of garland are strung over the mantel and doorways and threaded around the dining room chandelier. Accessories such as star-shaped pillows and a red plush throw, resembling Santa’s pack tossed over the back of a chair, signal the beginning of the season.

A small tree that stands in a vintage suitcase, and is decorated with white ornaments and lights, lives year-round in the Widmyers’ bedroom, but during the holiday season it’s brought down to decorate the dining room.

Widmyer isn’t shy about sharing why she loves to decorate and finds the abundance of holiday décor comforting. “I grew up in foster homes,” she says. “And I never had any ornaments or Christmas things of my own.”

Now, the mother of four, Widmyer lavishes the beauty and sentiment of the season on her family. Her love of the eclectic can also be traced to her childhood. “I was in as many as twenty homes,” Widmyer says, “And I picked up the ideas and traditions of each family.”

Her husband, who had a more traditional childhood, thinks his wife brings more to their lives. “When you don’t have something as a child, it can mean more to you as an adult” he says. “Marie brings us all together with her love of Christmas.”

Widmyer has a natural eye for display. A successful businesswoman, she owns The Cougar Bay Trading Company, and Marie’s Boutique, both located in the lobby of the Coeur d’Alene Resort.

In the past, Widmyer worked with the team that decorates the public areas of the resort.

Although she purchases new items with which to decorate each year – she has collected enough ornaments to fill as many as three trees – Widmyer fosters strong sentimental ties to things like the family’s Christmas stockings that are hung year after year, or a cherished Nativity set traditionally set up by her young daughters.

She is also building a Christmas collection for her children. Each receives a new ornament every year – usually a souvenir of a family trip or special event.

“They get to open two presents on Christmas Eve,” Widmyer says. “It’s always an ornament and a new pair of pajamas, so it isn’t a surprise, but it’s our tradition.”

A fragile glass “pickle” ornament, a salute to her husband’s German ancestry, is hung on the tree sometime between Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve to be found by a lucky child. “They all want to be the one to find the pickle, so I don’t tell them when I put it out,” Widmyer says. “It’s become a big part of our holiday.”

As a nod to her own English ancestry, the family opens Christmas “crackers,” paper tubes filled with a paper hat, a small treat and a fortune, during their holiday meal.

Another tradition is to add a new Christmas storybook to the family library each year.

“Then, my husband reads the new book to us on Christmas Eve,” Widmyer says.

Like the small, decorated, tree that Widmyer keeps in her bedroom, a Christmas clock hangs year round in the foyer of their home and plays a carol to mark each hour.

“It was my husband’s idea,” Marie Widmyer says.

The couple say it’s fun to watch their guests’ look of surprise when, in the middle of the summer, the clock starts playing “Jingle Bells.”

But they’re serious about it as a way to slow time and lengthen the holiday season. “It all goes too fast,” Steve Widmyer says. “We keep the clock up to remind us to slow down and enjoy everything.”