My Yuletide Decor

interior designer: nicholas LS whelan


I've got a little tradition with myself of photographing my home on December 7th each year. The aim is to get roughly the same angle on the same rooms each time so I can see how my family's environment changes. It's something I first did in 2017, then emulated the next year when I saw the Facebook memory pop up in my feed. Now it goes on my calendar each year, because creating miniature holidays for myself is fun!

2017

Living room in 2017. Four foot christmas tree on a table in center frame. An old sandbag and CRT television to the right. My office in 2017. You can see soc.ialis.me, my old Mastadon server, on one of my monitors.

2018

Living room in 2018. A sparse christmas tree to the left of frame. A home made easel for Morrie to draw on. The CRT has been replaced with aN LCD television, and the bean bag with a loveseat that barefly fits in the middle of the room. My office in 2018. You can see last year's office photo on my computer monitors, which are resting on stacked lego buckets so they can work as a standing desk.

2019

Living room in 2019, at a much wider angle than before! (I was working as a photographer, and had enough seniority at this point that nobody questioned it when I decided to keep my gear over the Christmas break.) Morrie's easel has been replaced by an angled art desk, and our cat Ritzville lounges in center frame. My office in 2019, also at a much wider angle! My monitors are now up on metal arms rather than lego crates.

2020

Living room in 2020. We've got a full 6' Christmas tree for the first time! Morrie is smirking at me from her art desk in the corner of the frame, because this was the first year of the plague and everybody was home all the time. My office in 2020. I've started keeping one of my monitors in a vertical orientation.

2021

Living room in 2021. We moved this year, so it's a completely different space for the first time. The are red, and pretty bare. We've got a nice 6' Christmas tree, and Morrie is looking at the camera from the far end of the room while eating from a bowl. There's an absence of any cat furniture, because Ritzville passed shortly before this. My office in 2021. The walls are green in here, the old living room love seat has moved into my office, and I've got a whole new computer. Morrie's office in 2021. Now that everyone is stuck at home I'm glad she could finally get her own space! It's painted blue. The basement in 2021. It's clean and carpeted and not really decorated very much beyond some garland and a wreath. The exterior in 2021. Colorful lights go along the trim and hang low around the window frames.

2022

Living room in 2022. Much more full now than it was just after we moved in. Also the cat stuff is all back again! My office in 2022. Now with two houseplants, and a pegboard for spare cables and clip boards. Morrie's office in 2022. She's got a nice adjustable desk now, a new white board behind her, and a fancy microphone on an arm. Also our two new cats, Scrump and Reagent Vendor, are making nuisances of themselves. The basement in 2022. It's very messy. The two new cats have taken it over. The exterior. Lights only along the trim this time. In the window we've got a cutout christmas village we made, and lights around the interior edge.

2023

Living room in 2023. It's dark this year, as these photos were taken late in the day, but is otherwise largely unchanged from last year! A few more things on the walls, a few more bits of cat furniture. The dark makes the warm glow of the christmas lights particularly pleasant. My office in 2023. Couch replaced with a bed, I've got three monitors now, and I've started putting stickers on my computer case. The chair is also new, with a nice rocking footpad to go with it. The two plants that were new last year have moved elsewhere in the house, replaced by two new plants. Morrie's office in 2023. Her desk now turned to face the wall, and her mac gone since her new computer is powerful enough to handle all the various tasks she needs for it. There are a few more art pieces on the wall, and you can't reeeeally tell in the photo, but we've replaced the trundle bed with a king. The basement in 2023. Much tidier! There's a new bookshelf I built over against the wall, and the ceiling tiles have all been removed. Since they've been gone Morrie has had way fewer asthma issues when she's down there. The exterior. It's quite dark out, so the christmas lights really stand out. We've added a few more lights to the basic set going along the trim. There's a new strand around the large window, and around the railing for the stairs. There's also a wreath on the door, and a cat in the window!

2024

Living room in 2024. I used a wide angle lens this year, so you can see a lot more than before! There are more photos on the wall, we moved the cat tree out of this room, there's a new bike and a chair from the basement got moved up here, but it's pretty much the same as other years. My office in 2024. Only one plant has survived from the previous year. There's a ton of lego everywhere, since I've turned to that for comfort a lot this year. I've also put up a shelf of all the various books I've managed to put out. Morrie's office in 2024. Morrie's computer is gone! She got an office downtown this year, so her desk is covered in papers and such. The wider angle also allows you to see much more of the walls, and the ledge that we put up for the cats by the big window, and also my elbow. The basement in 2024. A slightly different angle than previous years. This was taken shiortly after I finished removing the last remnants of the ceiling, and putting in nice new LED light fixtures to replace the heavy flickering flourescent ones. We've also got a table out, which we've been playing a lot of board games on. Exterior, taken shortly before sunset. We put up a fake tree in the front yard this year, and decoarted it with baubles and tinsel. We also have a nice net of lights on our big spiky bush.

2025

It occurs to me how tragic it is that I've never tried to capture anything of the back yard of our home. It's not a space we decorate, and thus outside the natural scope of this project—but the project isn't just about decorations at this point. Its most appealing feature is the ability to see how our home has changed over the years, and some of the most dramatic changes have been in our back yard.

Living room in 2025. This year's tree is much smaller, and placed on the table in the center of the room rather than in its corner, and we replaced our couch with a new one! My office in 2025. No decorations in here, we've toned decorating down quite a bit as this year has been pretty exhausting and none of us have that energy right now. My space is a bit of a mess, but I've got a new door since last year, and I've replaced the bed with the couch that was in here originally, which I always missed. Morrie's office in 2025. Never the same layout two years in a row with this guy! Also my elbow is visible again, with a new tattoo since last year. The basement in 2025. My sister and her partner are living down here, so part of the space is blocked off with a tarp. Also it's a mess, because, yanno, life lately. The back yard for the first time! This year we've done so much work to shape the garden, and hopefully these plants will really bloom over the coming year. Exterior, taken shortly before sunset. Outdoor deco scaled back, same as inside, but I think the lights look nice. The vine maples are finally big enough to support some lights on them.

—Nick LS Whelan

February 26, 2022

Updated December 14, 2023

Updated December 9, 2024

Updated December 10, 2025