Chickasaw Christmas Tour of Homes - Part 1

Saturday night the City of Chickasaw held their Christmas Historic Tour of Homes. It was fabulous! The Hydrangea Queen (Ramona) and I went. There were 5 houses on tour. The first stop was Bonnie & Horace Allen. I have been to their home a few times. You are always in for a treat when you visit here! Bonnie decorates for every season, and the house is never not decorated for something! She is also a big gardener, and has a nice garden. So lets begin.... She had every room in the house decorated, the laundry, bathrooms, bedrooms, porch, etc. I was waiting for her to pull down the attic door to show us what she had done up there! LOL!

This is the Dining Area....just look at all of it! She has a very eccentric, over the top style....needless to say...I LOVE IT! She is fun and fearless! She can see her whimsical style come through in her decor.

An old collection of Santa's. The paintings on the wall were done by her daughter. Pre-Education period as they like to call it. After they sent her to college for art, she had a more modern style to her painting. The Allen's like her pre-education period more! The paintings had a Grandma Moses feel to them! She had tons of her paintings around the house, and they all had a theme.

A glance into the Living Room. Mrs. Bonnie's them this year was "trees". She had trees everywhere, you can see some of them on this table.

Her Dining table was ready for a fantastic gathering.

I loved this hutch! Isn't it great!

On the mantle hung small wreaths with photos in them. I was amazed to find out that the photos are of her family.....3 children, 7 grandchildren and 17 great-grandchildren! WOW!

The kitchen is probably my favorite room. It is wonderful!

I would be willing to say that Mrs. Bonnie doesn't own one of anything....but multiples. She has a collection of everything you could possibly imagine!

She made all of the gingerbread and dried fruit!

I noticed several punch bowls throughout the house, different styles. They all said Tom & Jerry on them. The Hydrangea Queen informed me that they were very old. Tom & Jerry was a very popular cartoon when my parents were growing up.

Down the hallway snowflakes and stars adorn the ceiling. These stay up year round! I love her quirkiness!

This is the Master Bedroom! Every room in the house has a theme! Can you guess what this one is? The Valentine decor you see, is another year round decoration!

I saw this in the bathroom and burst out laughing....only Mrs. Bonnie!

Then I saw this!!!! Isn't it great! How come I have never thought of this!!!!! She also had one in her kitchen that she used to hang utensils on! FABULOUS!

Although I have been here a few times...I always notice something that I didn't see before. One of those was the stars on the ceiling. There are stars down the hallway, in the Master Bedroom and Guest bedroom. She explained to us that 9 years ago she had breast cancer and after her chemo treatments she would have to lay in bed, and didn't have the energy to do much of anything. So she used her hands, and made things. One of those were the stars. She cut them out and applied glitter to them, and her husband put them all over the ceilings! Isn't that great!

This is one of the guest rooms...well technically there is no bed, so its just a room. This room has a snowman theme!

Here is one of the punch bowls I was telling you about!

She has this cupboard filled with snowmen.

This is the Bunny Room. Notice the bunny sitting and reading The Night Before Christmas! That was too cute!

Everything is pink and white.

This was the laundry room! Can you imagine! My laundry room looks far from this! This is The Hydrangea Queen (with her eyes closed). Notice the candles behind her? I went to take a picture, and leaned back and burned my hair! It was terrible! It stunk so bad! Ugh...leave it to me!

This was a porch they closed in. It stays decorated in patriotic decor year round. can you spot my favorite thing in this room? I will give you one hint....it has a beak!

The Mantle Photos was SUPPOSED to go here (the very first photo). However, I can't re-arrange photos today. Some days Blogger lets me move photos, and some days I can't. I had the photo here to begin with, but accidentally deleted it, and now I can't move it back! AGGRAVATING!

Anyway....I absolutely LOVE this! Now I am on the lookout for an old mantle!

This is one of her outside areas...isn't it cute! Look at the old tub on top of the roof! So funny!

Here is Mrs. Bonnie.....

and Mr. Horace! Check out his bow tie! He said it used to blink 20 years ago! LOL!

You can click on any of the photos collages to enlarge them to see the photos. I took 89 photos at her alone....and clearly I couldn't put all of them on here.

All I could think about while I was walking through The Allen's house, is how much they remind me of Bob & Carolyn Brown. Ms. Carolyn is my 80 year old garden buddy. You may remember their garden was on our garden tour? They are terrific!

I was amazed how much these two couples had in common, and had never met. I felt like they had missed out on a lifelong friendship....so needless to say, I had to get them together.

I called Mrs. Carolyn, and told her about my crazy scheme! She said she didn't know there was anyone else in the world like her, someone that loved useless junk! LOL! When I told her what Mrs. Bonnie had done with the rake....she was in! So Saturday these two ladies will meet! The Dirt Queen (my mom), The Hydrangea Queen, and myself are going to take Mrs. Bonnie to Mrs. Carolyn's house, then we will have lunch at The Dirt Queen's house, then take Mrs. Carolyn down to see Mrs. Bonnie's. They have to see each others houses to truly appreciate each other. They are so much alike it isn't even funny! I am SOOOOO excited to get them together! Mrs. Bonnie said they would either love each other and hit it off, or hate each other because they would be envious of the fantastic junk the other one had! Too funny!

We have 4 more houses to visit on the tour, then we will take a tour of my neighbor's home (and her 13 foot Christmas tree), and then on to visit the Dirt Queen's home (ya'll know the she decorates her garden for Christmas!!).

Hope ya'll enjoyed Part 1! You will surely love Part 2!