Heirlooms for the Holidays: An Interior Designer's Guide to Creating Timeless Winter Celebrations
Each December, the pressure to reinvent holiday décor resurfaces. New palettes, new trends, new “must-haves.” But in her 115-year-old Berkeley home, interior designer Lane McNab has quietly rejected that annual reinvention for more than two decades. Her holiday season is anchored by ritual: the same beloved tablescape, memory-laden ornaments collected over decades, natural greenery gathered from the Bay Area landscape.
It’s a philosophy rooted in something more enduring than style, an understanding that meaning, story, and continuity are what make a home feel truly festive.
Honoring an Old House at Christmas
“I love decorating an old house for the holidays,” Lane says. Her approach is traditional in the most generous sense; unfussy, layered with memory, and deeply personal. Nothing is coordinated, and nothing is purchased for the sake of matching. Instead, every piece carries a story: hand-me-downs, heirlooms, ornaments accumulated over years of family life.
In her Craftsman-era Berkeley home, holiday decorating focuses on the places where the season naturally gathers people: the fireplaces and the dining room.
“These are the places where rituals happen; where we linger, where we share meals, where family gathers,” she notes. The rest of the house is left largely as it is, allowing the architecture to shine; wainscoting, millwork, and old-growth materials that need no embellishment.
Lane’s advice for other Bay Area homes with historic character is gentle and intuitive:
Let the architecture tell you where to decorate, not the other way around.
Gathering From the Landscape: Bay Area Greenery
One of Lane’s most practical and poetic traditions is relying on natural materials that don’t require storage. The Bay Area’s winter landscape — lush, fragrant, and green — provides more than enough.
Eucalyptus, often considered a nuisance tree locally, becomes a beautiful holiday material. “Whenever anyone cuts down their eucalyptus, it’s a wonderful thing to use for the holidays,” Lane says. Her neighbor has several trees that get cut back each year, and neighbors gather up the fallen branches. Those long blue-green stems, with their unmistakable scent, make extraordinary garlands and table runners.
Magnolia branches, with their deep green leaves and velvety copper undersides, add an easy sense of luxury. Lane also orders wreaths and garlands from the local Boy Scouts, supporting the community while choosing greenery that can be composted in January rather than packed into bins.
It’s a way of decorating that feels authentic to California, and one that avoids the burden of storing seasonal items for eleven months of the year.
The Stories That Make a Tree
Lane’s tree, like much of her holiday decorating, is unapologetically old-fashioned:
A collection of memory ornaments, each with meaning, gathered over time. There is no annual palette to refresh, no coordinated set to retire. Instead, each year adds something small — a new memory, a new story — to a collection that grows more soulful with time.
Perhaps the clearest expression of Lane’s philosophy is her tablescape, a tradition unchanged except for the branches that shift slightly year to year.
The table centers on German glass ornaments, chosen over a decade ago for the way they catch candlelight during early winter sunsets. Real greenery winds its way between place settings. The shapes and materials remain constant, becoming a familiar signal that December has arrived.
Lane’s children still look forward to this table. “They’re not just decorations,” she says. “They’re part of the rhythm of our family life. When they appear, it means we’ve officially entered the season.”
In a world that encourages constant reinvention, Lane’s approach offers something rare: Tradition as design, not as repetition. Continuity that deepens meaning rather
Entertaining With Ease and Warmth
After years of hosting holiday gatherings while raising three children, Lane has learned what makes entertaining truly enjoyable: not perfection, but ease. A few signatures have emerged:
German Glass Ornaments They shimmer beautifully in candlelight and store compactly for decades. They are less seasonal décor and more heirloom.
Charcuterie Boards Lane’s go-to for holiday gatherings: room-temperature spreads arranged on substantial wooden boards that gain patina with every use. They look beautiful, require little fuss, and allow the host to actually enjoy the evening.
Quality Linens Linen napkins in warm neutrals, heavy tablecloths that work year-round—simple materials elevated through use and texture.
And always, Lane returns to the practical things that make guests feel comfortable: a spot for coats, enough places to set a drink, and a clearly visible bathroom. Those small gestures (more than matching anything) are what create hospitality.
Beyond the Season
Lane avoids items that emerge only once a year. Instead, she chooses pieces that adapt to every season: boards that serve daily meals and holiday gatherings, linens that work for Sunday dinners and Christmas alike, tables that expand when needed. If something earns its place in the home year-round, it naturally enhances the holidays as well.
And the true measure of holiday decorating isn’t how it photographs; it's how it feels. In Lane’s home, the magic comes from objects that have appeared every December for more than twenty years: the German glass ornaments, the magnolia garlands, the candlelight, and yes, the slightly frightening felt elf.
Her children know these rituals by heart. Friends anticipate certain pieces each year. The traditions have become part of the family story, which is ultimately the point.
Guests won’t remember whether your décor matched this year’s color trends. They’ll remember the warmth, the gathering, the feeling of being welcomed into a home filled with history and care. That’s heirloom holiday design, not what’s new, but what lasts.