Beyond the Curb Christmas Home Tour with Kimberly Whitman

Hi everyone, I'm Christina Dandar of the Potted Foxwood and I'm here in Dallas, Texas with Kimberly Schlegel-Whitman and her beautiful home all decked for the holidays. Kimberly, thank you for having us. Thanks for coming. I admire your website and love all of your videos so much and your social media, so I'm honored and thrilled to be a small part of it. Well, we are so excited and honored to get to tour this all decked out for Christmas. Kimberly, I have been following you for a very long time. Since I was at SMU, you had the most beautiful books. You're on your fourth book now? I'm working on my tenth. Tenth? Yes, and I'm really excited about it. They've brought me so much joy and I always love hearing stories like yours where you were introduced to them a long time ago. My first one was 2005, so it's been a minute, but yes, working on number 10. Oh, well, it's just you've always just had such a great eye for hosting and design and so I love like the nutcrackers right now. Tell me a little bit about your front facade here and what you did to decorate it. Well, my mother always had really big nutcrackers at hers and so when we got our first home, she gave us some big nutcrackers and my sisters, when they got their homes, they have big nutcrackers, so I love my toy soldiers. My are clearly toy soldiers over nutcrackers, but I love them so much and they make me smile when we get to put them out every year. Oh, I'm sure, and your kids probably love it. Everybody's, doesn't matter how old you are, every kid, the kid in everyone loves these. Absolutely, and then I love how you have the double columns both wrapped here. Thank you. I love to use some local firefighters and they come and do all of my Christmas garland and lights for me every year, so it's really nice to be able to support them and they do excellent work. That's really great. That's actually a great idea just for anybody across the country that, you know, wants to help, you know, give some extra money to the people that are in our service industry. Absolutely, and they're great with ladders, right? They're so used to going up high with the ladder, so it's great. That's so true, and I love too how you have the poinsettias here. Oh, thank you, and the planters are so pretty. I love red. I love color and I just, I love bright red at Christmas. It makes me so happy. Yeah, it's really, I love the finish out on your brick too. I just noticed that. Thank you. That was here. We adopted that and love it and enjoy the house so much. All right, come on inside. Can't wait, and we have to also introduce. Oh, my sidekick here. Yes, this is Zeus. Zeus, come here. Can you say hi? Come here. Come say hi. Say hello. Zeus is our family giant schnauzer, and he's such a sweet boy. He is the same breed that I grew up with, so he makes us so happy. He's a good family dog. Well, immediately, I just, the staircase is beautiful, and I mean, did you, I know you came with a lot of great things, but your designer is someone we're very familiar with on the Potawatomi side. Absolutely. I adore Jan Showers and her incredible team. They helped us tremendously when we bought this house. We did a big renovation, and Jan and her team, along with Wilson Fuqua and his team, really just helped us transform this house into something that would work really well for our family. Well, I love especially how you draped the garland so pretty. Oh, thank you. That has evolved over the years. It used to be lots of bright colored bulbs, and we switched to the greenery and the white lights about two years ago, and it kind of grew up a little bit along with my children. It used to be real playful and fun, and this feels a little bit more seasonal. Yeah, no, I think it's especially great, and I love the panels going up the stairs. Thank you. So pretty, but one of the more interesting things that you were telling me about is this collection right here. Yes, so years ago, I started collecting pieces of cracked porcelain from the Hatcher cargo, which was a shipwreck discovered by Captain Mike Hatcher, and he pulled all of these blue and white pieces. You can get plates. You can get cups and bowls and dishes, and sometimes you can even find pieces that have coral and things growing out of them, but you can see on the examples you're showing right now that something was sitting on top of that, and so you can see all of this indention. It was under the water for so long, but it just kind of like made a dent instead of totally breaking it, which is so interesting, and then these are examples that are in, I guess you could say better condition, but maybe not as interesting. Yeah, I think it's really fascinating to see sort of the wear of the ocean. Yes, absolutely, and then Jan and I found these beautiful velvet cover wall mounts. Thank you. Thank you at Creel and Gow in New York, and I just think the color next to the blue and white is so pretty, that avocado green. It's beautiful. Honestly, I didn't even notice they were velvet until you just said that, but it really is so impactful. Yeah, it's so impactful, and then two here, like it's just fun to see all your collections, and again, I love how you grouped them together. I know Jan does that so well, too, so. Yes, so these are all vintage pushpin ornaments that I found, and I specifically adore these three that are like little dioramas. Those are amazing, and why? They're called pushpin ornaments just because they're literally pins pushed in, so let me see if I can pull one out for you a little bit. Well, this one's in there really good, but on some of them, they're a little bit looser, and you can pull the pins out, and you can see that someone made this by hand. Wow. Oh, yeah, just by pushing the beads right in. Isn't that incredible? You have to be so patient. I look at this one. Isn't that pretty? Yeah, and you have a few different collections of these throughout, and I love, too, how you did in the silver tray the nativity. Oh, thank you. This nativity, my mother gave me when I had my first, you know, big girl apartment, and she said, well, every apartment at Christmas needs, or every home at Christmas needs to welcome people with a reminder of the reason for the season. That's right. I love pulling that out every year. That's absolutely right. It's so beautiful, and then you just have been taste making for years. I know that sounds like a silly thing to say, but it's true. I mean, the amount of countless dinner parties you've probably hosted, and so you probably have it down to a science at this point. Well, I love to do it, and of course, with everything, the more often you do something, the easier it becomes, so it's, you know, it's a treat, and it's a joy, and of course, there's always things that go wrong or don't work out like you want them to, but the more you do it, kind of the more relaxed you are about those mistakes that are made as well. Right. I could only imagine. Tell us about this vignette here. Well, the silver bells are something that a friend of mine sends to me every year, and I used to always put them on the tree, and then I realized I have so many this year, I should try them in this English pottery woven basket and see how they do with a little bit of greenery, so it's just kind of a fun reminder of a friend, and then my tulip ears, I love to put these red berries in every year, and I love blue and white, and so to make it feel a little more Christmassy, I think the red is really fun. These are so much fun because every season, you can really put something in that suits the season. Do you have these here year-round? Oh, they live there, yes. So you put flowers in there, greenery, or things like that. Yes. Oh, that's so beautiful, and then obviously, just to see your table all set so beautifully. Well, this is the dining room. We're set today to celebrate my father's birthday. My husband makes some delicious pasta that everyone in my family loves, so we're going to have pasta night to celebrate my dad, and so it's just loads of fun. I don't normally have place cards out for my family, but I thought for you, it was fun to have the place cards out there today. Right. Do you typically, though, if it's a dinner party of friends, have place cards? Absolutely. I think it's so important to make your guests feel as comfortable as possible and take kind of the guesswork about your wishes for them. I don't know about you, but when I go somewhere, I always want to please my host, and I get nervous, like, where am I, where do they want me, where should I be sitting, and so to lay it all out for your guests, I think, is really something kind that you do for them. Absolutely, and on your website, Kimberly, you have an amazing kind of assortment of how you, like, hostess gifts. You have your gift guide, too. We both kind of talked about how on our gift guide, one for you, one for me. It's so much fun to tour your Christmas shop without doing a little bit for yourself, too, isn't it, when you find things that you love and you want to share with people, but yes, I love on trunk curated.com to curate tablescapes, and I feel really lucky to be able to mix different brands on there, so it's fun for me to be able to shoot a table that maybe has a heron plate and crystal from Mosier and silver from Christoffel, and it's just nice to be able to mix the different brands in the way that we curate the website, so I love to be able to do that. Well, it's a great resource, and I love, too, how each setting has a salt and pepper shaker. Well, I just think that's one of the little things that you can do that is a little bit unique that, you know, it always kind of pleases people when they sit down and see that, and it's definitely a gift that you could give the person who has everything that loves to host is start them a collection of little salt and pepper shakers, and on the website, we have these silver ones, but we also offer some beautiful cut crystal ones from Artel that are just little treasures, and they look so pretty at everyone's spot, so it's such a fun gift to start collecting for people every year. I have a few clients who give the gift of China every year, so they'll buy one or two plates for their daughter or goddaughter or something like that so that when they turn 21 or something, they've got a whole big set and can do a whole big dinner party, so I just think that's a lovely gift, too. That's a great idea. Yeah, I think starting a collection, I know I've mentioned this on my podcast before, but starting a collection is an amazing, it's a lifetime gift. Absolutely, and honestly, as the giver, it makes it so much easier for you because you know exactly what you're going to get for someone every year. Absolutely. Oh, these lamps are incredible. I just noticed those. Thank you. Those were a Jan find, and they were actually, they were at my mother's house in a bedroom, and when we bought this house and we were planning everything, I was like, I kind of want to steal those lamps from my mom, so she let me. It was just very sweet of her. Wow, that's very sweet. Moms are, couldn't be good for that. Moms are so good for that, yes. Oh, and then, okay, tell us about, did you create these orange topiaries on your own? Yes, and we tried to find cloves to put in, and cloves were sold out in like six different grocery stores last week. No, but we love, my children and I love to do the cloves and the oranges, but this year, this had to do, so I got to make this one, and then I got some help with these two right here. Mitra from Bellissimi Floral helped me with the flowers on the table and these two pomander trees this year, so you know, sometimes with time, even though you love to do it yourself, sometimes you have to call in the experts to help you finish things up. Absolutely. And then this beautiful piece was a gift to me this year, and it reminds me of our church of HPUMC, and my dear friend Libby Allred gifted that to me, and so I was really excited to kind of give it pride of place on the sideboard this year. Absolutely, and if anybody wants to message either Kimberly or I, she has an amazing collection of Staffordshire. She does, that belonged to her parents, and she and her sister are now selling some pieces, because I think they started with over 800, so it was an unbelievable collection, and I was really honored to receive this gift from her, and I found a few things that I got to buy too. Wow, it's just beautiful, and yeah, I've never seen a collection quite like that. Right, it was very special. I was so glad you got to see it. No, thank you for showing me, and then I love right away, I'm greeted with some gingerbread. Well, I mean, these are just such happy pieces, and this is another thing. I think this season brings out the child in everybody, and so it's so much fun to see how adults and children both are delighted by these, and Susie, the owner of Susie Cakes was at my house last night for dinner, and she said, how do you store those all year long? And she thought they were real gingerbread, so I have to congratulate the Sweet Savannah Company who makes these in making one of the most extraordinary bakers think that these were real gingerbread. I think that's quite the accomplishment. I agree, it's a great testament, but they just have so much, like there's no detail left undone. Oh, aren't they incredible? And on both sides. I love the trees too. So these are from Mosser Glass Company. They're made in the USA, and this is one of our best-selling things on Trunk Curated. The prices are unbelievable, and I love to mix and match all of the colors, and I love that it's a made-in-the-USA product. They also make an excellent gift or hostess gift too, because the price is fantastic, but they make a really dramatic presentation. Absolutely, that'd be pretty on a tablescape too. Oh, beautiful. I've used them down the middle of a table before in all shades of red and pink in there, and clear, and it was very pretty. That'd be beautiful, and I love your living room here. Thank you. And then such sparkly garland here. Oh, this is like a glittery garland. This is the mantle where I usually do fresh greenery, but we decorated so early this year, and I found this, I don't know, I'm usually not a glittery person, but this one I found kind of enchanting. So pretty with the silver, has almost a Victorian look to it with the kind of a tinsel look, and then these are the stockings that I made for my children. So this is JR's, and this is Millie's, and I do, I don't get to do it as often as I would like, but I really enjoy doing it, and I find it so relaxing, and when my middle sister was pregnant with her first, my first nephew, she said, the only thing I want from you is for you to needlepoint a stocking for my son. So I've now done the three of them, Tobin, Teddy, and Tabitha, and now I'm working on my baby sister's children, like Kate and Ford, but I haven't even finished Lakes yet, and she's five, so I obviously don't get to do it as often as I would like. It's probably pretty time-consuming. And I don't mean to make you spin around again, but this is one of my favorite Christmas decorations. It was made by my friend Lori's mother, and she doesn't make very many of them, so I was so honored to be gifted one one Christmas, and it's one of my other favorite things to pull out. That's beautiful. I love the little nativity outside. Isn't it precious? Yeah, she's very talented. No, it's sweet. See, I think it's all about the sentimental moments, and, you know, I feel like that's what the holidays are kind of about. Absolutely, definitely for me. I mean, I definitely have the collecting bug, and I could cover every piece of, every surface in here with things that I love to collect if I'm not pulled back a little bit, but at Christmas, I feel like it's no holds barred. You get to, like, pull out all the collections and put them everywhere. All the pretty things. I love this little display of collection. This is more hatcher cargo. Oh, it is? So these are other little pieces that came from the shipwreck, and I wish everyone could feel them because they have this kind of unique chalky texture. I know, it's almost like it's, you know, been in the bottom of the ocean. Oh, you would almost think so, yes. Oh, that's really special, and it's hard to come by, you were telling me. It is. It has become harder. I mean, that you used to be able to find them from dealers or from auction houses, and they're just harder to win now. There's rumors that there's a big-time world-class collector after them now, so it's hard to win a bid anymore, and this is really the family space. Oh, it's amazing, this big window, too. Oh, this is where we're always hanging out, and we have today, the Children's Godmother is coming over to do gingerbread houses, so this is an annual tradition of ours, and we love doing it with her, and I'm, you know, a little controlling, so I control the colors of the candies that go on the candy and the icing colors. We're going full Christmas. We're going full red and green this year, yes. Oh, that's such a special tradition, and I love these. I just noticed these really pretty trees here. Thank you, so they open up and have, you know, like little Russian dolls, other things inside, but we got these. My son played hockey on a Team USA, and I got to go with him to Finland and Sweden and Estonia, and when we had a little day trip to Estonia, I found these in one of the little shops there. Oh, someone's trying to go in for the candy there. Oh, boy. Hello. But aren't they neat? They're really neat. Yeah. Those are special. That's so neat that they open up like that, too, the silver tray. Get a quick peek of this outside area as well. Absolutely. It's beautiful. We spend a lot of time out here. It's great in the covered spot, and I fought having a television out here, but I'm actually really glad that we have it because everybody likes to sit out here, and when the weather's nice, eat dinner here, and we haven't lit a fire yet this year, but I'm looking forward to it. Well, you could do it today. I think so. It would be a great day for it. It's a little chilly out here. I love your blue and white planters. Thank you. Justin told me about a tree that he remembered of a family friend of his that was just a green tree with only red cardinals and red balls, and for some reason, that tree always stood out to him. It was a neighbor or a friend. I can't recall, and so this is my mantle, an homage to his childhood memory. Well, you know what? I think that's what's so special about the holidays. There's things that do stick out to you when you're little, and it makes a big impact of why it makes it so special. Yes, it's so true, and so it was fun to be able to do that, and I actually think it looks really fun, especially for an outdoor mantle. Agreed. I do, too, and then I want to focus here just for a minute on how pretty this little vignette is here and the Salvation Army, because you're very involved with the Salvation Army. Is that right? My grandfather was, my father was, and of course, I'm a big fan, and my dad always had Byers Choice Salvation Army dolls in his office, and so I started collecting them many years ago as well. Oh, look at them over here. This is great, and then here's a little shout out to my father-in-law. This was his, from his induction into the Great Western Performers Hall at the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City. Oh, that is amazing. That's really cool history. He was a California cowboy, but he was a good one. A cowboy nonetheless. Yeah, there's cowboys in California in the right parts. Yeah, and then I love this garland around the mantle, especially all the cutout pictures. Well, one of my dearest girlfriends every year takes our Christmas card, and the next year at Christmas, we get one of these ornaments of the cutout of the picture from our Christmas card, so it's so much fun to pull them out every year, and it brings back so many memories, and you know, it's funny. I'm realizing as we talk about my Christmas decorations today with you, how many of my favorite collections are gifts from friends, and how meaningful that is, and I think, too, they're such personalized gifts, and I think that's what makes it so special. Yeah, yeah, and she's darling. She takes my parents' Christmas cards as well with the entire family and does it for me, too. So you see everybody on here. These are great, Kimberly. I love to see that, and the ornaments mixed in. Just so many fun, pretty. Oh, they've got the elves over here. Yes, that's kind of a little collection of some of the things my children have made as well. Oh, wow. The pom-pom tree and Millie's version of the elf on the shelf, the little baby. Yes, and a little cottage that J.R. painted. But again, how pretty does it look all on a tray together, like collected like that, you know? Thank you. That looks really good, and now for the most exciting part. The tree. The tree, which is, again, like such a hodgepodge of different ornaments from glass-blown radco or radco style to ones that my children have made or that Justin and I have gotten on our travels. And so to make it feel a little bit more cohesive, I tie them all on with the same ribbon, and I feel like that way the hodgepodge, the eclectic group kind of feels a little bit cohesive. I agree. I think that looks really good, how it's like that. Thank you. And then the angel's really pretty at the top too. Well, it's funny. For a few years, I've been thinking I'd like to get a new angel, and then every time I say that, my family says, no. You can't do that. I feel like once you're used to the angel, you have to keep it. Right. And now do you do different themed trees every year? No, I'm not like a themed tree person, but we used to do colored lights. Okay. And my big change was that we went to white light. So it's not very much of a change, but no. I mean, I love, I always admire other people's themed trees, but for me, it's just fun to pull out all of these memories and we decorated ourselves, which might be obvious, but we decorated ourselves and as a family, it's a fun family night to do it together, usually right before Thanksgiving. Oh, I know. It's really special. And we have to give also a little shout to your kind of trellis tree. Oh, thank you. So my carpenter who did the triage in the outside here, he made this for us as well. And I need to kind of spruce it up a little bit and have some repairs done, but it has lasted a very long time and been a really nice way to cover up the base of the tree. And then we typically have my son's electric train going around the bottom, but we haven't gotten quite that far this year. Well, everything looks so beautiful and this has just been such a treat to see. See how you're all decked for Christmas. Thank you so much for coming to see it. I have so much fun doing it every year. It was really fun to share it with you. Well, be sure to follow Kimberly Schlegel-Whitman on Instagram and I'll link, trunk curated, all 10 of your books. Oh, that's so sweet. Nine for now, working on number 10. Number 10 is coming soon with Shelley Johnstone again. That's right. I'm partnering with Shelley again and I'm really excited about it. Well, thank you, Kimberly. Thank you. Merry Christmas, everyone. Merry Christmas.