Enthusiasts show they’re crazy for Christmas by decking halls, walls …
“You have to see it to believe it. … In three to four days the whole house changes. … She is a Christmas ninja.” Emad Elrafie, on wife Nagwa Osman
Dozens of nutcrackers from all over the world are lined up in orderly rows on shelves and fireplace mantels. Hundreds of Santas, from those that walk and talk to others who merely sit still, lurk in every corner of these spacious homes.
There are tables so laden with faux snow and glowing ceramic villages that you might mistake a foyer or dining room for a holiday store.
Christmas hasn’t just arrived — it has taken over.
If you thought the millions of strings of outdoor lights and parade of inflatable decorations in yards have become the biggest holiday displays in town, you likely haven’t peeked inside homes of some of the city’s most passionate Christmas enthusiasts.
In Nagwa Osman’s 6,000-square-foot home in The Woodlands, you’ll find every imaginable holiday decoration, from sacred Nativity scenes carved from olive wood from the Holy Land to glitter-bound men in red whose suits are trimmed in faux fur.
Although Osman is quiet and modest, she’ll proudly tell you that her store-bought items often just aren’t glitzy enough.
That’s when she gets out her craft items, special fabrics, glitter, sequins and hot glue gun to take them all up a notch.
“You have to see it to believe it. It slowly starts after Thanksgiving, and in three to four days the whole house changes,” said her husband, Emad Elrafie. “You have seven to eight trees and a lot of Christmas decorations. She decorates the kitchen, bedroom, ceiling, everywhere. You would think this takes six months to put together. She is a Christmas ninja.”
When it comes to holidays, Americans can’t seem to get enough. The $12 billion holiday decor industry shows numbers rising everywhere.
The annual holiday market — where importers show their wares and designers and retailers load up for 2018 — grows bigger every year, says its host, the Dallas Market Center, which in January will show off 600,000 square feet of holiday products, a 15 percent increase over five years ago. Renting a storage unit
Lauren Leavitt-Griffin does not need convincing. Like Osman, she is a selfprofessed fan of Christmas, the magical holiday that has captivated both since they were children.
So when Leavitt-Griffin moved into her Tanglewood home a few years ago, she knew she needed Christmas decorations.
“I went overboard the first year in this house. My husband walked in and said ‘What have you done?’ ” she said. “I found a catalog and ordered everything in it.”
By “everything,” LeavittGriffiin means enough that she rents a storage unit to hold it all and then hires movers to transport the contents of the jam-packed space to her home sometime after Thanksgiving each year.
Leavitt-Griffin, an emergency room physician, said she got hooked on the holiday as a young girl.
“My grandparents had presents piled to the ceiling, so I always thought it was magical — probably me more than anyone because I was the youngest,” LeavittGriffin said.
At home, her parents brought Christmas to life.
“It was an explosion. You woke up and the cookies for Santa were eaten. I guess they are things all parents do, but you really believe it,” she said. “It was tangible. I mean, there was no question in my mind. They used to make noise . ... I really thought Santa was on the roof.”
Now, Leavitt-Griffin and her husband, Dallas, are recreating the experience for their children, 2½-year-old son Grant and 3-monthsold daughter Ayelet.
Grant’s starting to get into the holiday spirit. He naps in his white cotton pajamas embroidered with nutcrackers. Then he runs around the house singing the chorus to “Jingle Bells” — over and over and over again — while intermittently trying to play the toy French horn he’s snatched out of one Santa’s maroon velvet bags.
In a crib nearby, Ayelet establishes her place as the soundest sleeper on the planet.
Not far away is a mechanized Santa who climbs up and down a ladder. Last year it frightened Grant; this year they’re pals.
On the kitchen counter there’s a large nutcracker dressed like a pirate, a nod to Grant’s Halloween costume — Captain Hook.
Leavitt-Griffin’s lovely 9-foot Christmas tree is adorned with bulbs in gold and silver and some that are pearl encrusted. There are pale white poinsettias, butterflies and even miniature chandeliers hanging from her tree, all glittery and sequined. “I love pretty Santas,” she declared. “My mom got me started on that, too. If it’s girly, I have to buy it.”
Then there’s the penchant for anything Yorkie related: Leavitt-Griffin has three Yorkie dogs and on one table there’s a tiny Nativity scene with tiny Yorkies in doggie coats standing guard over baby Jesus. ‘Made her happy’
Earlier this year, Osman worried about her own holiday plans as she faced life-threatening heart surgery. She made it through, and informed her family that she’d need a little help for Christmas.
“They were thinking that this year, because of my surgery, that I would not do much, but after two weeks on my feet I needed to do my Christmas,” said Osman, who is half German and half Egyptian.
Elrafie works for an energy company, so the couple has lived all over the world. Not only have they celebrated Christmas everywhere, but she’s collected decorations for it all over as well. Their home has about 2,000 square feet of storage space for their holiday decor.
Even when she was recovering, Christmas was on her mind, her husband said.
“She was flat on her back, and she still had her glue gun. That made her happy,” Elrafie said of his wife of 31 years.
The couple will host a holiday party for neighbors, plus another for Elrafie’s coworkers, who have become accustomed to Osman’s traditions: goodie bags for everyone and a huge Germanstyle meal.
She spent her early childhood in Germany, so a Bavarian-style meal — wienerschnitzel and mashed potatoes topped with sunny-side-up eggs and fried onions plus homemade noodles — will be on her December menus, she said. And there’s also the lebkuchen, the German-style gingerbread that she orders from Germany — enough to last the whole month.
Her husband and two grown children — a son and a daughter — like to tease Osman about her Christmas thing, but she knows they enjoy it, too.
“They say I overdo it, but they love it, OK?” she said. “They know how much I love Christmas, and they feel the joy when I do it.” Personalized decor
Dalia Stokes and Bobbie Bayless know people like Osman and Leavitt-Griffin well. Their Christmas Rocks shop on Ferndale Street in Upper Kirby — it shares space with their Bayless & Stokes law firm — caters to Christmas fans all year long.
During much of the rest of the year they’re busy with legal work, but in December they’re in their downstairs shop nearly full time, feeding consumers’ appetite for collectible porcelain bisque Snow Babies, candle-powered pyramids and Wilhelm Schweizer pewter cutouts, among other things.
Their inventory shows how focused our holiday taste can be. Houstonians might have a single tree decorated with Texana: ornaments shaped like the state, six-shooters, armadillos, bluebonnets or other iconic themes.
Dog lovers come here for ornaments that look like dachshunds, Labradoodles and, yes, Yorkies. Not only do these things personalize our holiday decor, they make us feel good, too.
“Lots of our customers are Medical Center patients who are in town for treatment and want something uplifting to do so they come to our Christmas store,” Stokes said.
Christmas Rocks specializes in traditional holiday style, but Regina Gust of Regina Gust Designs said today’s hottest trends use vintage ornaments or contemporary colors.
Tinsel-y garland is back in a big way, and Gust likes to double it to make it even fuller. Paired with a well-lit tree, it positively glows, she said.
“I grew up with tinsel on the tree. I put every little icicle on my tree individually,” she said, laughing. “It’s the icing on the cake. It’s the sparkle.”
Gust’s own inventory covers 500,000 square feet, and while she personally likes traditional holiday decor, she knows other people don’t.
“There are no rules. There’s no rhyme or reason,” Gust said of holiday decorating. “Your house may be ultra modern, but at Christmas, bring out your funky Santa.”