The best ways to prepare for the holidays
Thanksgiving leftovers are still in the fridge, but, let’s go, America! It’s time to trim the tree for Christmas. These magazines think they know how to get it done. We’ll decide.
Elle Decor
Michael Boodro, editor-in-chief of Elle Decor, gets right to the point in his monthly letter: “If staying home can be a salve to your beleaguered spirit, then sharing it can be a gift to those you love.” The Montana ski house on the magazine’s cover — with its inviting fire and dog from central casting — embodies Boodro’s sentiment. And the eight-page spread inside presents every holiday detail you’d expect in a traditional mountain retreat. What? You don’t have a mountain retreat? The issue also decorates a 2,800-square-foot Palm Beach apartment. The effort, “inspired by water, sand and sky,” left us feeling serene in the extreme. What? You don’t have a 2,800- square-foot apartment? Perhaps another title is for you.
Veranda
Veranda delivers on its “High Style for the Holidays” cover line by taking readers inside the San Francisco home of Ann and Gordon Getty. The Gettys’ holiday gatherings — in their magazine-perfect sitting room, replete with a 13-foot-tall tree — include nightly rounds of cocktails and piano recitals amid a collision of Christmas and Russian themes. The sitting room’s curtains, for example, are repurposed from the Paris apartment of the late Rudolph Nureyev, described as “a friend of the couple.” Yours might be repurposed from grandma’s house. Veranda also displays an Aspen retreat designed by Richard Hallberg, whose minimalist sensibilities make the cabin look like nothing so much as a Soho loft set in ski country. “We need to edit, edit, edit,” the California designer advised the home’s owner. “And the more we simplified, the richer the house became.”
House Beautiful
House Beautiful stays true to its mission of serving young homeowners. In the December issue, party master Charlotte Moss turns her six-story Upper East Side town house into a winter wonderland and caps off the season with a Southern-style buffet for 50 of her closest friends. Readers get not only a peek at Moss’ townhouse embellishments this year but also tips on hosting. “Go overboard,” Moss suggests, and “invite them to snoop.” But Moss’ cardinal rule, she says, is to decorate your house to say: “Welcome. And stay awhile.” The Hearst title further distinguishes itself from other, more affluent, older and less likely to have children-focused titles, by having a cutesy child on its cover. Inside we learn she’s the 3-year-old daughter of Catherine Olasky — a former Londoner and current Texan who’s half of the design duo Olasky & Sinsteden.
Traditional Home
Meredith’s Traditional Home, known for its classic taste throughout the year, gives readers a much-needed wink and a smile this month. “Time for sparkling snowflakes, twinkling lights, enchanting ornaments — and the decorating sophistication of a 10-year-old.” Or so the monthly says in a feature about Matthew Patrick Smyth. Turns out that Smyth, a Manhattan-based interior designer, really does decorate his Connecticut country home as if he’s a kid. “I don’t think you should overstudy Christmas,” he says. “Don’t worry about good taste — just go for it.” Smyth decorates for the holidays on the second weekend every December and wraps things up by Saturday night. “You can walk into a room and immediately see who felt tortured by their holiday decorating and who had fun,” he says. The issue also does the Breast Cancer Research Foundation a solid turn by devoting seven pages to its major benefit, New York City’s Holiday Designer Showcase.
New Yorker
With a bit more than 83 years to go, the New Yorker asserts in Talk of the Town that Donald Trump “has a shot at being the century’s worst president.” Having indulged that, the magazine appears rather fatigued on the whole business this week, opting instead for features on revenge porn, performance art and Spanish director Pedro Almodovar, who prophesies that “binary gender is condemned to disappear.” Taking a break to peruse the arts section, we were a bit vexed to read the glowing profile of Carolina-born tap-dance sensation Michelle Dorrance, only to learn that her show in New York closed with a matinee on Sunday. She’s got no Big Apple dates slated through at least next spring. We envy all those New Yorker readers in Montreal and Nashville.
New York
New York puts Natalie Portman on its cover, playing a grieving Jacqueline Kennedy in her new movie, with the caption “in a dark time for the nation.” So the election of Donald Trump is apparently analogous to the JFK assassination. The tone inside is similarly plangent, of course, but what’s truly fascinating is the apparent fear of forces within the Democratic Party itself. A piece by Rebecca Traister and Rembert Browne, for example, opens with the question, “What sort of optimal oppositional role can we imagine Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama playing in the next several years?” The pablum unspools for an entire page, also naming the likes of Michelle Obama and Bill Clinton as key “optimal oppositional” figures, without even mentioning Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren. Indeed, this feels like the right time for a fantasy about a fictional Jackie Kennedy, sitting out the LBJ and Nixon administrations inside a Fifth Avenue penthouse.