Seattle Tudor Christmas House

This Seattle Tudor is nothing like an original Tudor Christmas. However it is a festive holiday home with retro and traditional touches throughout. The many collected decoratives may remind you of your childhood christmases. I love to create a winter wonderland that is surrounded by the warmth of candle light, lots of christmas lights, and colorful decoratives.


Legends abound about Christmas. One involves where and when candles were first associated with Christmas. One of the more popular stories concerns the great Protestant leader Martin Luther. It is said that on a journey home in the winter of 1522, he was struck by the beauty of the stars shining through the fir trees that were common where he lived in north Germany. He cut off the top of one of the smaller trees and took it home. Once indoors the beauty disappeared as the stars were not there. To impress his children, he put small candles on the ends of the branches to resemble stars - hence candles at Christmas which were eventually to be replaced with Christmas tree lights. Even so, the modern Christmas tree lights are meant to represent the stars seen by Martin Luther as he journeyed home that winter's night. In that sense, Luther made his mark on our society by leading the Protestant movement in Germany in the C16th and, so legend has it, lightning up Christmas with candles.

But Tudor England was still many years away from Christmas cards, Christmas turkey, Christmas crackers, Father Christmas in his red costume and even the common use of Christmas trees.