Holiday party season is canceled, but that didn’t stop Bonnie Bing from decking her halls
During a normal year, Wichita’s Bonnie Bing — Wichita Eagle columnist and one of the city’s most stylish residents — would already have hosted several holiday parties and would be preparing for a few more.
Her guests would swoon over her holiday decor, which Bing never does halfway, and they’d leave with a little gift. If they forgot it, Bing would likely chase them outside to make sure they took it.
Alas, 2020 has derailed the holiday party season. And though Bing and her husband, Dick Honeyman, aren’t entertaining their friends this year, Bing said, she resolved to deck the halls nonetheless.
It brings her joy, she said, and people need to take joy where they can find it, especially now.
“This year, we’re not having things,” Bing said. “But I enjoy it, and Dick enjoys it, so we just light it up.”
Recently, Bing allowed us to bring cameras in for a masked tour of her 1930s-era Tudor home in Riverside, where she and Honeyman have lived since 1985. Just like it always is, the home is filled with glowing holiday decor — trees and wreaths and wall hangings and displays that are usually admired by many but this year are just for two.
Bing said she’s always loved Christmas, but before she and Honeyman moved into their big two-story house, decorating didn’t take her long. The Riverside house was a blank holiday canvas.
“This old house really lends itself to Christmas,” she said. “And the thing I had to learn quickly is that you can’t do little bitty stuff. It has to be either a lot or be big.”
Every room in Bing’s and Honeyman’s home is fully decorated and most have their own decorated trees, even the upstairs guest rooms where her family members won’t be staying this year. She’s sent them photos, though, so they can see what they’re missing.
Just inside the front door, Bing has created a tabletop filled with trees that look as though they were made out of icicles, which she found at The First Place, and a four-foot Santa that Bing has been displaying for at least 25 years.
Step down into the dining room and you’ll find a fully set table lined with garland-decorated chairs. There’s garland and ornaments hanging from the chandelier above, too, and in the corner of the room, there’s a collection of a dozen perfectly gift wrapped red and gold packages spilling out of a full-sized sleigh. (Perfect Christmas bows are a Bing specialty.)
Just outside the dining room’s picture window is another display of glowing miniature trees, each covered in white lights and situated around a large wooden toy truck.
The main living room, whose emerald green velvet couches are always ready for Christmas, holds Bing’s tree, full of white lights and nesting on a huge collection of already wrapped gifts. (She’s had her shopping finished since Dec. 9.)
On the kitchen island, Bing has arranged a big display of trees made out of peppermint candy and large, decorative glass jars filled with red and green hard candies. The peppermint stripe theme continues throughout the kitchen’s other decorations, which include garland and a wreath hung above the sink.
Getting the downstairs ready meant weeks of wrestling with light strands and extension cords and dragging things down from the attic. It was more fun this year, she said, because without parties on the calendar, there weren’t any deadlines. She could take her time and enjoy the work, Bing said, and she did. She doesn’t even mind taking it all down.
She advises aspiring decorators to pick up items whenever they can find something they like, whether at stores or at estate sales. Her home is filled with treasures she’s collected from The First Place and Hobby Lobby, but some of her favorite pieces have been snagged at friends’ estate sales. She loves the brass reindeer she acquired at philanthropist Velma Wallace’s estate sale, and it reminds her of her late friend every time she puts it out.
“I look at Christmas stuff everywhere I go, including on vacation,” Bing said.
Bing also advises people to consider using candles with artificial flames when they decorate, something she learned the hard way four years ago when she nearly burned her house down. She left candles unattended on the dining room table long enough to run a gift outside to someone who forgot hers, and she returned to find the table in flames. Bing now avoids real flames at all cost and has managed to find many artificial candles that look quite real.
Although she is dedicated to decorating, Bing said, it’s hardly required for happy holiday. People should put up as much or as little as they are able.
“It doesn’t matter whether you decorate one room to the max or if you put up one tree or one wreath because the light has to be in your heart and the twinkle in your eye,” she said.
This story was originally published December 18, 2020 at 5:01 AM.
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