Bonus Episode: Suzanne Kasler's Holiday House Tour 2025

0:00Hi listeners, it's me Caroline. Surprise! We are bringing you a special bonus episode today because if you are not subscribed to our YouTube channel, you may not have seen it, but we shared a gorgeous holiday house tour on our YouTube series with none other than Suzanne Kasler. you may know that Suzanne is a huge holiday fan she loves Christmas she loves decorating for the holidays she's done tons of holiday products with us for Ballard and she has many of those things in her house and uses them each year it was a great conversation between Karen and Suzanne they talk about Suzanne's strategy for decorating the types of things she likes how she mixes it up every year and even some of her own holiday traditions.

0:46And it's just a really fun chat. And you get to see Suzanne's beautiful home. Of course, if you aren't already subscribed to our YouTube channel, please go do that. But other than that, just enjoy this sweet conversation and we'll see you in the new year.

1:04Suzanne, thanks for having me over. Merry Christmas. It is our favorite time of year. Oh, it's your favorite time of year. It is my favorite. I will say I've known you since about 2010, which is 14 or so years. And I bet I can say that in every single meeting we've ever been in, you've told me how much you love Christmas. It is interesting how much I have always loved Christmas. Yeah. And the best thing is when I became a partner with Ballard, you embraced my love of Christmas. Well, we like Christmas too, but I don't know if anybody loved it as much as you do. I mean, this is stunning. Well, thank you.

1:39It's been exciting to have everybody here today and really showcase all of my collections. And as a designer, I always collect things. But what's interesting is that all year round, if I see things that are Christmas, I buy them. You do. And then it's been a lot of my inspiration for some of my collections with our company together. But I just have realized that I do maybe love Christmas and embrace it more than a lot of people. More than most. Yes. So you're talking about you're collecting, years and years and years of collecting, right? Right. How do you keep it from looking like a yard sale in your house?

2:16Because I feel like mine kind of goes yard sale sometimes. Because it definitely doesn't look like a yard sale. Well, what I really have always done in design, and I do it with my Christmas, I have found that when I do see something I love when I'm out and find a Christmas ornament, first of all, I buy at least a dozen of those pieces. Of the same ornament? or something similar? Or the same piece. When I did the ornaments, like I buy at least a dozen or more of one thing. And when I, for instance, found the Czechoslovakian crystal trees, I found them at Scott's Antique Market. This woman had bought all these antique vintage trees from a Czechoslovakian factory.

3:00So I remember buying them and they're very sparkly and the cristally, the trees. And I bought like at least eight of them. And I brought them back, and everybody thought they were so over the top. But then everyone wanted them. And we did end up making those for Ballard. But what I have found is that if you can put your collections together, like I do in my design, my concept, and like I will put all of those pieces in one area. And usually I mix them with natural greenery. I love the natural mixed in with Christmas, even when I have different kind of collections. And it really works because then they really have an impact and they don't look so cluttery.

3:44Looks more intentional. Yeah, it does look, and it kind of ends up being a feature. And so you'll see throughout my rooms in the house, obviously in my living room, I have my tree with all of my collections of the most beautiful muted Ballard ornaments. And what would happen is I had seen this group of ornaments and I bought this little box and I brought it to Ballard and we made this entire collection and I added colors to it. But in this room, I put my Chukul Sabaki and trees with these muted ornaments and it's really chic and it kind of really works with all the natural greenery. And then we go into the entry and I have my nutcracker collection.

4:24And my mother gave me a nutcracker every year. And pretty soon you have like a lot of nutcrackers. And for a while, Keith Arnold in my office, he helped me, we put them together. It's almost like sculpture. And they're so effective together in one grouping. But I found if you spread them out throughout the house, they kind of lose the impact or the specialness of that collection. That's when you start the yard sale effect? Yes. Okay. Okay. Good to know. Because I was asking you earlier, because I have a nutcracker collection and you were saying group them together. And even if like you don't have room on one surface, put them all in the same room.

5:02So you've got several in one spot and several over here in another spot. So great tip. I'm going to definitely do that. And every year when I get out our Christmas things, I do end up coming into the living room with one collection because it's kind of, you know, kind of works with this room. But what I have seen is things do unfold. You know, different times you're in the mood for something different. So I have a lot of collections and I don't use everything every year. I'll kind of focus on maybe getting out some things certain times of the year. Like this year, I have two grandsons, which I'm really excited about.

5:40A two-year-old and a four-week-old baby boy. And my daughter is coming over, so we got out the train. And for years, I had the train when she was little. But this year, we got out our Christmas train. So I think what's great about Christmas traditions, you can kind of have collections that might alternate how they're used. and how kind of you focus on them. So that's kind of what I try to do with Christmas. So there's no pressure to kind of use it all every year or, you know, oh, this is sentimental. If I don't put it out, then, you know, I'm failing my mother or something. You can kind of like let things rest and maybe it makes them more special the next time you pull them out.

6:19I do think that is important to do because if you are a collector, you sometimes have more things than you can put out. But I will say I managed to put out quite a bit because I do three Christmas trees. I love having the Christmas tree in the living room that's a little bit probably more refined. I love having the tree in the family room that's got more collections of ornaments and things that you've collected that are probably a lot of the memories. Like sentimental. People give you things, you know, the kids, things that you kind of incorporate in. And then we put a tree upstairs in our upstairs when we get up to the landing.

6:59and in that tree, I put my entire collection of teddy bears around the bottom. And my mom, again, gave me a teddy bear every year. For years, I did make a teddy bear for Ballard, and it was so cute. One year, finally, the Boyd Company, which makes the most beautiful teddy bears, they said they went in hibernation. So we couldn't get any more bears from the Boyd's We really, we did it for years, but I have this collection and it's great because my Owen, my grandson comes over and he makes a dive for the tree and he starts taking out all the teddy. We just surrounded it with teddy bears and we didn't put any ornaments on that tree except for one year we made the wooden ornaments with just red bows and they're not really, you know, glass.

7:45And we just put those on the tree. So I just love that you can have different experiences with your trees. But the big thing I always wanted to do is use real greenery, real wreaths. And one of the things that changes up, the biggest change, is what color ribbon you're using that year. Do you change that every year? I really do love the classic red, but I do remember, you know, different years we've used silver and white and creams and then green plaid and the red plaid. So I do love red at Christmas. I will say that it's the one time you'll see me today in red. I don't wear red except for the holidays.

8:29And then I have this whole, I have all these things I have that I only bring out the month of December. which I think is the thing we have to keep in mind when we're getting ready to decorate because it can be overwhelming and I know even this year everybody's so busy when it got down to the time of decorating what you have to think about and I kind of talked about it today is take three or four days and just get everything done and it's a pretty intense three or four days like we were missing a wreath, we had to go back and get the wreath. We were missing garland, we had to go get more garland.

9:07We had to go get all the boxes from downstairs and then you have to put them back. But then what you think about is you have the entire month of sparkle, all your memories, and then you can start like, I'm having the office Christmas party tonight. You got a lot on your plate. I know. But you want people to come and enjoy it once you get it done. Right. So if you have a deadline and like we're having friends, we're having dinner with friends this weekend. And I thought, well, I'm going to have everyone come back just for dessert, not for a whole nother dinner. But I think there's ways to really, and then certainly the Christmas Eve and Christmas Day traditions of the family.

9:46Then you have the house, you can enjoy it all month. So you spend three or four days. When do you do it? Do you do it right after Thanksgiving, before Thanksgiving? Literally, you have to do it like December 1st. You have to like put that on your schedule. The second Thanksgiving's over, get your plan. Well, because if you're going to do all this work, you want to take the whole month to enjoy it. And one thing that I try to remind people, because everyone always seems, it seems like it's a lot. But think how when you come home, like when we got all done this last couple days, when I came home last night from our fun dinner, it just was so beautiful.

10:24You know, you really can then really enjoy what Christmas is. And having just, I think, these traditions and all the things that you, you know, what collections are are memories of you, either your mom or your family or you've been out traveling. One time we went to Salzburg, which is all about Christmas. You buy ornaments. I think those memories are just what make having all this worth getting everything done. I agree. I think it just reminds you of the season the second you see it. And then suddenly you feel a little more lighthearted. Yes, yes. So we're talking about live wreaths, live greenery.

11:04Do you only have live trees? I do one live tree in the family room. And the other trees I really do not live. They make beautiful trees today. And the thing is people want to leave trees up for a long time, for the month. It makes it great if you have the trees lit. And it's amazing the quality today that we can do with the trees that are already, that you buy that are not real. It also, you don't have to worry about them shedding or being any kind of danger. But I do love having the real tree mixed in. And I always do real wreaths and garland. Now, I see this one's flocked. Yes. You like a flock tree?

11:51Only once in a while. Okay. And we did that. This was a tree we designed for Ballard. This was a Ballard tree. Mm-hmm. And what I loved about it, it's hardly flocked at all. It's just so minimal. I just love that. Yeah. Well, I feel like it goes with your room so perfectly. And it's kind of with all the ornaments we did. So I just love that you can have all these different concepts at Christmas. So when I think of you and your interiors, I generally think neutrals. And I want to look around this room. It's very neutral. So I would assume you would only have sort of neutral and pastel Christmas, but clearly you've told us you love red.

12:27Do we need to be matching our interiors to our holiday decor? How does it work? I love traditional red and green Christmas. It's the one time, it's strong, it's kind of vibrant, and it really works so great to use the red and green. But over the years, I remember we did a whole collection, all cream, silver, gold. and I think that different years design trends do influence Christmas you know some year that you might want just a rust at Christmas you could do a tree with absolutely just the tree and maybe some lights you know there's I think that what I love about Christmas design and decor you can do as much or as little like if you even put a tree up with just the lights on it it is it's beautiful And it can be that natural look.

13:19But I remember one year with Ballard when we were designing our Christmas things, we did the natural branch. We hung over the table. Oh, yeah. Almost in place of a chandelier. And then we hung all the ribbons and everything was done in silver gold. And we did all that. I do love the silver metallic. You'll see a lot of silver and I'm using like silver pieces. But we did all the mercury glass with it. And so I think that, you know, I do love that as well. So there are different years I've done different things. And I do think, again, you can take different looks in different rooms of your house.

13:54But traditionally, I have come back recently to loving red. And, you know, red right now is a fashion color, the burgundy and red that we're both wearing. And so you do get kind of influenced a lot by what's happening, I think, in our design world. Yeah, unless you're hungry. Yeah, yeah. Okay, I have a personal question. So, and it involves kind of color coordinating with your home. When you think about your front door and your wreath, your house is white. So I feel like anything would go with that. My house is olive green with sort of spa blue shutters. Do I need to have like ribbon that goes with that?

14:29Or do you think I can just go red? You know, probably for your house, I would do our black watch plaid ribbon. That's so cute. Which it's that beautiful black watch plaid. It's the green and maybe. and I had seen a wreath with that on it and we had that beautiful ribbon we made and I love that with that kind of coloring. So I do think that you do have to kind of go with kind of the look. And you know, our house is that classic white with the black door. So the red and green is certainly, I think, kind of really what shows up here. It's a statement. Yeah. Does it need to flow into the home? You know what I'm saying?

15:07Like when I open the door, if I have a red ribbon here, Does what's inside need to sort of continue that story? I have usually continued that story. So for you, if you did the black watch plaid ribbon, it would be beautiful to do that on your stairs with all your garland. My nutcrackers collection. Yes, you could put your nutcrackers out. And we did the throws that matched. We did for years, we did the red plaid and the black watch plaid throw. And you'll see in the house, I've saved them. And I put them out only at Christmas. And it's interesting how you'll come into a room like I put the pillows and my throws out only at Christmas.

15:44And then I put them away and I just bring them out for the month of Christmas. It's interesting how that works just at the holidays. I have the red plaid apron. I do too. And I always bring it out at the holidays and it just makes you feel so happy when you're cooking. We have those too. So you're pulling all this stuff out for the holidays and it's a lot of stuff. Do you have to put things away or do you try to integrate it all with the accessories you already have in your house? One of the things I think that's, again, overwhelming for people about Christmas is you really have to move things out of the way to make room for Christmas.

16:18So here you have your house all settled, but the Christmas tree that you want to show in the window, you have to move the table. The end table that has the lamp on it, we literally have to move out of the room. and all the things on your mantle. If you want to put your Christmas things on, you have to take them down. And I think at first that seems a little bit daunting. A lot. Because not only do you have to get out all your Christmas things, you have to then first edit your room to get ready for Christmas. But as I mentioned, the best thing about it is it's an entire month that you get to have your room have a whole different feel.

16:55And so then sometimes when I get ready to put the things back that I've taken out, it makes me relook at them and makes me think about how I'm going to put them back differently. So it kind of is a way that your house kind of has great energy, that you're always involved in what's happening in the house. Because as you know, I think a house is kind of absorbed energy about how you kind of collect and move things around, and you have your favorite piece. And that happens if you even buy a new piece for a room. The whole room starts having a different energy. So I know that I had to take all the pillows off in the family room to put my plaid pillows on.

17:32And at first, I'm like, not sure. I want to do it. And then you kind of have to get into that whole kind of concept. It's time for a whole look for Christmas. So when you put it all back out, you kind of rethink it. And you don't necessarily put it in the same spot. That happens a lot of times. Or sometimes you're ready for an edit, and maybe you don't put it back at all. So you just keep it all locked away for another year. I always think that you can have collections and they can rotate. They can kind of be stored. They can kind of come back at different times. I feel like it's like when you change your closet out for the season and you bring out your winter stuff.

18:11You're like, oh, I forgot I even had that. I love that so much. I forgot it was there. So it's kind of the same thing where you're bringing out something you haven't seen in a minute and it gets you all excited again. Yeah. And that's how Christmas is. So you mentioned tonight you were hosting your holiday party for your office year? Yes. And it really has ended up being kind of the favorite night of the year. For you or for them? Really, I think for all of us. First of all, they all helped me. I have a fabulous design team. And they really helped me get the house ready. And it makes it worth it.

18:45They all love how much I embrace Christmas. and they're always inspired by how many things I have. And every year we never use all of it because I have boxes of different collections. So we kind of all decide what are we gonna focus on this year. But what's happens is we have a catered dinner and this year we're gonna do a little differently. We're gonna actually set up both and we have like 28 people coming. They all come with their partners, spouses, husbands and we're going to set up both tables. For the first time this year, we're going to set up the dining room table. We always just let everybody sit where they wanted.

19:26And we noticed all the young people would sit at the kitchen table, which is a big kitchen table. And all of us would go into the family room and just sit there. But this year we're going to just set up both tables and find a place for everybody to sit. And we're kind of excited. December is such a great closure time of the year. We've had such a busy, for everybody, it's been a busy, it's been a lot this year, as you know. It's been an amazing kind of a lot going on. So it's kind of that time to really stop and celebrate. And then I give the Christmas gifts. So do you have any tips for hosting?

20:03Because I will stress myself out. I will make myself crazy when I'm having people over. How do you not go crazy? I think there is that overwhelming time when you're getting everything ready. and so what I try to do and I kind of did that even just getting the house ready this time we kind of get everything out and it almost looks so like so much and then we kind of go back to each room and edit and edit each room take things away and then maybe add a few more things or move some things or then put things in boxes and take it back to storage but I do think when you're thinking about hosting, think of when everybody comes and you have the Christmas music on, the fires going in the fireplace, and how much fun it is, and how special having people in your home.

20:50But it's a lot for people. And so what I'm going to do, like I said, this weekend, we're going to have dinner with friends at Blue Ridge Grill, and then we're going to come back and have dessert. I feel like that's brilliant. So I'm kind of like thinking of how do we get everybody to enjoy Christmas without it being overwhelming and all so much. And so for Christmas Eve, one thing I did start seeing is traditions change as your family unfolds. And this year, with two new, we have two, the two-year-old and the new baby, my daughter and her husband will come and we have the kids, actually six grandchildren total.

21:30There are other families in Indianapolis, we go visit them. But one of the things that happens, I found with traditions, we love having a tradition, but this year the tradition is going to change. We will go to their house for Christmas morning instead of everyone coming here. So we're going to start a new tradition of coming over Christmas Eve. Ah, to your house. To our house. And then Christmas because Christmas morning with the kids. Well, you have to follow Santa. And I think you do have fall santa but what i've seen is um it's interesting how traditions will change each year i mean we always have our office christmas party um always try to have friends come over at one point but with the family it does change depending on what's happening with all the kids that's right they meet people yes they go to other houses you have to not be jealous all right right i'll just get my moment with yeah that is true it is it is and i kind of tell people I see things kind of unfold differently, but we can still have our Christmas tradition.

22:28But sometimes it can't be the same that it was every year. Do you serve a signature cocktail when you have people over? You know, really, we just serve champagne and wine. No red wine. No red. I only serve red wine if you're sitting at dinner because if you have red wine in your house, it will be spilled. I'll be the first to find you. So I do have red wine, but if you're sitting down at the table, you can have red wine. That's Friday. It's a good rule. Yeah. Yeah. I would be your chief offender. We wouldn't be friends anymore. I know. And then what do you do for, like, what's your big holiday meal?

23:07What do you do for your Christmas? We really do love still the turkey. You do turkey at Christmas? I really do love it. You know, I really only do it twice a year. And, like, we cooked for Thanksgiving. And we really cook. And I don't cook often because of my travel and just kind of, you know, we're kind of doing like a lot of things. But I do love the traditional turkey and the spinach and strawberry salad and just kind of a classic. We kind of do it again for Christmas. We kind of, it's just so, because it's just not done. We don't do it any other time of the year. So that's kind of what we're going to try to do again.

23:47Another turkey. Yeah. I love it. I love that you have like new babies coming into your traditions. Then you can. It's so fun. And as I said, we have the train and we're going to have lots of toys out. But it is going to be a whole different fun change in our Christmas traditions. Do you have to do anything around the house to baby proof? Are you worried that they'll break your beautiful crystal trees? Well, I will say that it's so the cutest thing is Owen, our two year old, he's like 26 months. His favorite thing is to run around the house in a circle, and he runs to the living room, which has everything in it that is not baby-proof.

24:30Right, very fragile. But we follow him, and he picks up all of my crystal pieces. He is so attracted to everything beautiful. And one thing in the family room, we have had to edit the table. We take every accessory off the table and move it up higher. But it is funny that we do that in the family room. But the other rooms, we kind of let them experience with a lot of monitoring. Some super features. But it's so interesting how everyone's so attracted to all the beauty. Should I have Jax? Yes. Well, maybe he's going to be a collector. Well, I just think that it's fun. And we'll say every table, you know, like it's like.

25:08And I have a lot of, interestingly, as a designer, a lot of low tables. They're all like perfect height for everyone. But it's fun. And then we have our game table that we will move into the room and start a puzzle. I love a puzzle around the holidays. Yeah. That's such a great tradition. I know. Right here I have my Dior puzzle ready to go on the game table. Well, because the family can obsess about it on Christmas Day. And we did that at Thanksgiving, too. Yeah. And I think that having just places for people to hang out and all be together but have things happening is really part of it. Do things besides watch football.

25:42And then the fire going, even though, yeah. We're in Atlanta and it's not that cold. We're having a fire anyway. That's right. Yeah. You got to suffer through it. Yes, yes. Take off your sweater. Right. Well, I love all these holiday traditions. Well, I think that I was thinking back about it and when we were talking about how you start traditions. And so much of it, I remember my collecting was going to my grandmother's. And she would always take me to the antique shops, our little antique country. She lived in the country. She was always collecting china and crystal. And I was, because I was thinking, how does, how did I always start collecting?