Christmas in Neenah 2025
There’s something about an old house at Christmas that a new one just can’t quite match. This is my parents’ dining room on Christmas Eve 2025, in a home that has been standing in Neenah since 1917 — and on a night like this, you can feel all of those years in the woodwork.
The table is set and waiting for dinner: red placemats, the good glassware, a little greenery, and a place for everyone. Above it hangs the stained-glass chandelier, throwing that warm, jeweled light down over everything, which to me is the heart of the whole room. The original dark woodwork and the leaded-glass cabinets soak it all up and give it back soft and golden.
Over in the corner the tree is doing its job, glowing with multicolored lights and topped with a lit star, and tucked along the cabinet beneath it is a little lit-up Christmas village — the kind of small tradition that takes an afternoon to set up and is worth every minute. Red poinsettias hold down the other corner, and the houseplants they keep year-round make the whole space feel green and alive even in the dead of a Wisconsin winter.
This is my favorite kind of evening: the house warm, the table ready, the lights low and the candles lit, and that quiet hum of anticipation before everyone arrives. Merry Christmas from this old house in Neenah.
