Family heirlooms and carefully chosen secondhand finds are the heart and soul of this merry and vintage holiday in this Eichler home.
Christmas is a time for nostalgia, and while Cathy Burns, a retired grade school teacher, is known to get creative with her décor, the key ingredients for the season’s festivities are always the tried-and-true ones. Cathy has been living in this Eichler in the Fairhills tract of Orange, California, for the past 46 years and although she’s certainly bucked some tradition (she wallpapered the wall in the dining room some years ago because, well, she wanted to and she could), during the holidays it’s all about tradition.
“We moved in ’78. The house was 14 years old by then,” Cathy says. “We were looking for something a little bit different. We didn’t have a plan that it would be Mid Century Modern. We lived in a little house in Fullerton, right next to the city college, and we wanted something a little different.” And that’s what they got. Their previous neighborhood was full of country-style houses, as she describes them, with lots of curtains and small rooms. Cathy and her husband, Bill, a high school teacher, found out that their friends who lived in this Eichler before were going to sell, “move up in the world” and buy a nice new house on the hill. So, Cathy and Bill offered to buy it, a pocket listing. The couple became the home’s third owner and as Cathy was pregnant at the time, this cool and different Eichler would grow for the next handful of decades as a warm and loving family home.
An Eichler Enthusiast
What has Cathy loved about living in an Eichler for all these years? “The openness, the glass,” she says. “When I go into another kind of house, it’s closed in. And I always come back and breathe in this house because I can see so much.”
Cathy and Bill raised two kids there, hosted many Christmases and she says raising a family in a mod home was, “Well, it was fine,” she chuckles. “It was easy with Eichler children. I had to be a lot more careful with non-Eichler children. We put stickers on the glass or doors; some kids would try to walk through the glass doors, but it was great. You could see so much, I could be in the kitchen or in the atrium and I could see where they were.”
A Vintage and Merry Eichler Home
This open-plan house was also perfect for hosting for the holidays. “I’ve always hosted for the holidays. Ever since my oldest was born, everyone came here. It’s easy to host in the Eichler; there’s lots of room.”
While Cathy’s holiday decorating style has certainly ebbed and flowed over the past 40-plus years, their tree is still the same every year. “Because I’ve got ornaments 50 years old, they all go on the tree and they have memories collected over the years,” she says.”Although I have many of the same decorations up each Christmas I try to combine it differently each time. I want it to feel fresh but familiar because that’s what we love about Christmas gatherings.”
Many of her vintage items are actually from her parents. “I have some decorations that belong to my folks,” she says. But even when she discerningly hunts for new items to add to her holiday repertoire, she usually buys old. “I like going to antiques stores and I try to look for things from the mid century with cleaner lines. It has to have that feel.”
Cathy still hosts for the holidays, albeit the guest list is smaller and simpler. “We still have to have the same foods each year, like my mushroom merengue cookies for the holidays,” she says. And with family heirlooms new and old bedecking the halls, the feeling, like the home, is warm, sentimental and special.
If you loved this merry and vintage holiday Eichler home, you may also love Shiny and Bright MCM Holiday Home in Idaho. For more holiday cookie recipes, check out these Holiday Cookies Fit for an MCM Home. And of course, don’t forget to follow us on Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest and YouTube for more Atomic Ranch articles, house tours, and ideas!
