Old Goat Farm | Christmas

Christmas

Old Goat Farm

The one constant at Old Goat Farm is Christmas. Gary has a passion for Christmas that is unsurpassed. He has always pulled out all the stops and decorated to the nines. It probably isn’t a coincidence that Gary saw Old Goat Farm for the first time on Christmas Eve. He immediately started to think how cool it would be to decorate this old house. Being a Victorian type farmhouse it lends itself well to being decorated.

peeking in the window

When I say Gary has a passion, that’s putting it mildly. Every room has a different theme and every room has a tree including the bathrooms and hallways. There are usually between 15 and 20 trees in the house and at least a dozen or two outside. A bonus at the farm is that there is a barn which is also storage for the 100 plus containers of ornaments, 20 trees and countless strands of garlands, wreaths and lights. When we lived in the city we had to rent storage which added another whole layer of difficulty to the holiday, running back and forth.

Snowy Owls

The Christmas décor is actually a collection that has been forty five years in the making. Currently there are about thirty to forty different themes that Gary chooses from. They are never the same from year to year (that would be too boring). Even when he repeats a theme he does it in a different room so it is larger or smaller but still never the same.

About 2007 a friend talked us into sharing the Christmas magic with her garden club. Another person overheard that conversation and wanted to bring her club so we did 3 teas. Everyone wanted to come back and bring their own friend so since then it has taken on a life of its own. Now there are about 35 individual Christmas Teas. For many friends and neighbors it has become a Christmas tradition.

The Garden

For my part I try and stay out of the way. We close the nursery the first part of October so I concentrate on putting the garden to bed which keeps me outside. I kid Gary that he does all this to get out of that big chore. I also do the baking for the teas. All the desserts are homemade. Last year we went through 51 cakes, 18 pies, 10 bread puddings, 6 batches of brownies, 8 batches of biscotti, 2 quarts of lemon sauce and 650 goat shaped sugar cookies.

Over the next couple weeks, starting Friday, December 1st, I will post photos of a different room each day. If Christmas isn’t your thing you might want to just skip our Facebook page until the new year but if you enjoy an over the top display feel free to share it with your friends.