Celebrating Without Breaking the Bank : TRIMMINGS : Festive Parties to Fit Within a Budget
With a listing economy and more people mindful of their pocketbooks, lavish holiday decorating and entertaining may seem an extravagance that needs trimming this year. But several North County businesses and hosts are substituting excess with creativity.
Many florists and gift shops are offering festive ideas for a bevy of budgets. Hosts and hostesses, too, are refurbishing decorations from past holidays, or making ornaments and centerpieces from materials found around the house.
Sparkling party ideas need not translate into big bucks. At Party Connection in Encinitas, for example, Becky Bove helps “shoestring” customers create a Christmas table with a metallic star garland, shredded paper, Santa dessert plates, candles and a red table cover.
At Silver Bells in Vista, owner Paul Kaufman freely counsels customers on simple tricks such as hot-gluing ornaments and curly ribbon to the tops of place mats, or wrapping them in Christmas paper. Ribbon runners strung down the center of a dining table and dotted with clusters of candlesticks topped with glass ornaments is a look that can be achieved largely from things people already have at home, Kaufman said.
Theme parties, such as English Renaissance or South of the Border Christmas, are popular among guests and lend themselves to festive decorating ideas. Canterbury Gardens in Escondido displays several themed party tables, each a confection of centerpieces, charger plates, holiday motif china, crystal and table accessories.
Jackie Cooper of English Gardens in Oceanside offers a $5 class in creating party centerpieces, wreaths and wall sprays from traditional fresh pine, cedar and holly, and of more exotic mediums such as dried gyp, caspia, latifolia and baby’s breath. A specialist in dried bouquets, Cooper harvests, dries and dyes the sprigs and flowers on her Oceanside farm.
Many retailers say that metallic garlands, gold lame, lots of bows and dried pomegranates are in vogue this season. Artificial trees and dried arrangements also add a new spin on the traditional red and green that often dominates holiday decorating.
Even in these recessionary times, Peggy Preuss considers entertaining and decorating for the holidays essential. The former schoolteacher adorns every room of her Rancho Santa Fe home with handmade ornaments and fresh and dried flowers, then invites 30 people in for a sit-down dinner party.
One of the ways Preuss and her husband, Peter, keep their parties fresh is to hold a themed event every other year. Making the most of their chateau-like home, the Preusses comfortably seat their guests by situating them in separate rooms for dinner.
“I put a table in the entrance hall, one in the music room, one in the library,” Preuss said. Guests mingle throughout the house during cocktails, and afterward the main course is served in separate rooms.
There is visual contact between all the rooms used for the party, Preuss said. “A wife may be in the library and the husband in the music room. They have two different experiences and it’s great fun.”
Preuss said she decorates each room differently. While a florist adds touches such as gilded bay-laurel garlands over the fireplace and windows, she designs her own centerpieces and buys discount yardage to make her own table toppers--like this year’s green taffeta--to lay over floor-length cloths.
The different schemes in each room make it easy to use a mix of china and a variety of brass and pewter charger plates.
For Sandra Johnston, being the wife of a Marine Corps lieutenant general gives her some unique decorating props to work with during the holidays.
Housed in the historic Santa Margarita Ranch House, Johnston incorporates some of the treasures of the house, including green and gold Marine Corps china; red and green and gold plaid napkins discovered at the PX and matching plaid and solid place mats.
In every household, there are the makings for a unique holiday experience. And it is ultimately the spirit in which things are done that makes for successful entertaining.
For Debbie and Sgt. Bret Biskup, holidays at their Camp Pendleton home are traditional observances they believe are worth sharing. For the past six years, the Biskups’ Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners have included a sizable gathering of stray Marines based far from home.
“It started with a single guy who didn’t have anywhere to go,” said Debbie Biskup, mother of three young children.
Biskup plans a month ahead and always fixes a turkey using her grandmother’s stuffing and bread pudding recipes. Marine guests mash the potatoes, stir the gravy, light the candles. “Everyone helps out. They don’t just sit around,” Biskup said.
At Christmas, the Biskups decorate a large tree, then bring out a Nativity scene and decorations their children have made.
“The kids bake the cookies, and we start early with the turkey at 4 a.m. and smoke it outside on a gas barbecue rotisserie over hickory chips. It takes a day,” Biskup said.
Many of the same Marines are repeat guests at the Biskup holiday dinners. “One couple has gotten married and they still come over,” said Biskup, who brought the tradition to Camp Pendleton when the couple transferred from El Toro.
In January, Bret Biskup will be transferred again, this time to Willowgrove, Pa. “In the Marine Corps, you get used to moving,” Debbie said.
As for next holiday season in Willowgrove, Debbie intends to continue her holiday dinners for any Marines who are lonely and far from home.
