Eight homes featured on Elgin's holiday house walk

Would you like to experience a house dressed to the nines for Christmas without the trips to and from the attic? Attend this year's Northeast Neighborhood Association Homes for the Holidays House Walk and get your jingle on, trouble free.

"We have eight homes, the largest tour we ever had, and we also have a little warming house and a very small craft fair carefully curated," said Patty Harkin, president of the NENA and chairwoman of the house tour.

The neighborhood has more than enough homes with the holiday spirit to choose from, according to Harkin; it's simply a matter of finding house-proud participants willing to hand over the keys.

The committee either asks in person or turns to Facebook for volunteers, all the while seeking a variety of homes for the tour.

"Ideally, we have architectural diversity and I think we've achieved this," Harkin said. "We have two Queen Annes and two Italianate houses, and two kinds of smaller houses, that are just, in my view, perfect gems."

Also, NENA doesn't provide decorators like some tours do, although committee members have been known to run out for a little extra ribbon or garland at the last minute.

"The houses are decorated by the people who inhabit them, not a special decorator who spends thousands of dollars," Harkin said.

Krissy Palermo, whose home boasts more than 5,000 lights, not counting the outdoor bulbs, has been putting up her display since Halloween and does so in tribute to her grandfather and other loved ones.

"It was something my grandfather and I enjoyed together growing up," she recalled. "I learned at a very young age that Christmas is the time when you are grateful for whoever God brought into your life that year. It's really about friends and family and treating them like we might not see them next year, because life is a journey and we might go a different direction."

There are 12 trees in Palermo's home and numerous decorations throughout, which she keeps track of with an inventory book and numbered boxes, a result of 36 years of experience.

"There's Christmas in every room," she said. "The main tree has 1,800 red ornaments that I have collected all of my life from all over the world. I have a Santa collection. The dining room tree is all in crystal, a gingerbread tree in the kitchen and there's a tree in every bedroom."

Conor and Christine Goetz are enjoying their first year in their home on Douglas, while keeping their commitment to recycling and repurposing by creating many of their ornaments.

"My wife has been working on making sort of origami and pop cans that are cut out and spray painted," Conor said. "We made plaster ornaments with the kids. Our dining room is decorated with paper ornaments."

The Goetzes are unique in that they will present what Conor referred to as their "obnoxious tree."

"My wife and I give each other ugly ornaments, which we've been collecting for 10 years," he said.

George Noodens and Richard Gipp have a leg up on Christmas collectors as the owners of Elgin Antiques and Uniques. Noodens confesses to picking over any ornaments brought into the store before customers are allowed to shop. The couple has a collection of mercury glass ornaments on the live tree in the foyer of their 1881 Italianate, which they've owned for four years.

Two of their many trees boast a theme.

"The formal music room has a Mardi Gras theme; the enclosed back porch has a sports theme; and Richard has a collection of postcards, circa 1880-1910, on his upstairs TV room tree," said Noodens.

The homeowners are as diverse as the homes themselves.

"One of our homeowners was born in Mexico and she has Mexican traditions, with a hand-carved Nativity set and so on," Harkin said. "Another homeowner has always been interested in Asian cultures, especially Chinese, and a lot of her furniture and decorations are Chinese.

"These houses are all individual; they're unique," Harkin added. "They really do reflect the history, traditions and values of the people who live there."

For details, visit nenaofelgin.org/.

If you go

What: Elgin's Northeast Neighborhood Association Homes for the Holidays House Walk

When: noon to 4 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 5

Where: Registration on the day of the event will be at Advocate Sherman Hospital's atrium, 901 Center St., Elgin.

Cost: Tickets bought online before the event: adults 19 and older $15 in advance, $20 the day of the event; students ages 9-18 are $10; children are free but must have a ticket to enter

Details: <a href="http://www.nenaofelgin.org">nenaofelgin.org</a>