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Hi, I’m Crissy Haslam. Welcome to the Tennessee Residence. We are so excited to
share with you this year’s decorations inside our state’s executive residence as we celebrate
“Tennessee Music.”
This year, we partnered with the Museum
of Appalachia in East Tennessee, the Country Music Hall of Fame in Middle Tennessee, and
the Stax Museum in West Tennessee to acquire authentic pieces or reproductions that represent
Tennessee’s rich musical heritage. The museum pieces have been supplemented with
complimenting ornaments and decoration support from Jim Marvin, based in Dickson, Tennessee.
Jim is known worldwide for his holiday design and color schemes-every year he is asked to
decorate other historic homes like the White House and the Naval Conservatory. It is
a treasure to have him in Tennessee!
The Stairwell Garland shows a variety of musical instruments to represent this year’s music
theme, and these instruments were loaned to us from the W.O. Smith Music School located
here in Nashville.
In the Entryway, a Frasier Fir grown by Santa’s Place located
in Woodlawn, Tennessee, is decorated with ornaments representing all of Tennessee’s
95 counties. A local artist in each county was selected and asked to paint an ornament
representing their home county. Each ornament is extremely unique, portraying the skill
and creativity of its artist. We are very grateful for the time and talent the County
Ornament Artists contributed to the project.
The Museum of Appalachia located in Norris, Tennessee helped us to create the Appalachian
Music Christmas Tree and mantel in the Living Room. The Leyland Cypress Tree grown by
Duncan Christmas Tree Farm in Selmer, Tennessee features authentic handmade musical instruments
made by people who lived in the Southern Appalachian Mountains. Music has always played an important
part in the lives of the people living in the Appalachian region. Even in the most
remote mountain cabin, shy of furniture and cooking utensils, one could find two or three
musical instruments. My favorite instrument that we have on display is a violin created
entirely from matchsticks.
At the end of hallway, the Country Music Hall of Fame helped us to create the Country Music
Tree. The tree, a Fraser Fir grown by Santa’s Place in Woodlawn, Tennessee, features photographs
from the Country Music Hall of Fame’s archives and a Hatch Show Print tree skirt.
Displayed
in casing next to the tree is a Jacket designed by Manuel Cuevas. He designed this specific
jacket to represent Tennessee and its musical heritage. A custom framed and sculpted Hallmark
Christmas ornament that commemorates Brenda Lee’s landmark Nashville recording, "Rockin'
Around the Christmas Tree" is also on display, from Mrs. Lee’s personal collection.
The Stax Museum in Memphis helped us to create
the Soul Music Tree featured in the Sunroom. The tree features reproduction 45s, soul album
covers, speakers, and a pair of stacked shoes that look similar to those worn by Isaac Hayes.
The psychedelic colors are reminiscent of the colors that were popular during the 1960s,
the formative years of American Soul Music. The tree is a Concolor Fir grown by Santa’s
Place, Woodlawn, Tennessee.
We were thrilled to have our Tennessee students help us again this year with decorating Conservation
Hall. To continue the music theme, Tennessee elementary students were asked to create Holiday
Song trees, and students from east, west and middle Tennessee created unique ornaments
based on their favorite holiday songs.
Nashville area Christian high school students from Christ Presbyterian, Davidson and Lipscomb
Academy created ornaments for our Gospel Music Trees which include Snowflakes made from sheet
music of Handel’s “The Messiah,” ceramic crosses, angels, and stars, and beautiful
ornaments made from sheet music from church hymnals.
Humes Middle School, Elvis’ alma mater in
Memphis, helped create a tree to honor one of Tennessee’s most famous musicians, Elvis
Presley. The tree features ornaments made from gold records, album covers, and pictures
from throughout Elvis’ life.
While Tennesseans are touring the decorations, they’ll be able to hear songs from their
Tennessee alma mater next to the Higher Education Tree, which displays ornaments representing
many of Tennessee’s colleges, universities, technical schools, community colleges, and
other institutions of higher education.
Finally, a Patriotic Tree is displayed by the front door of Conservation Hall, decorated
by students at Gran-Mar Middle School in Nashville. The ornaments they created were to honor the
Tennessee men and women bravely serving in the military, defending our country’s freedoms.
The holidays are always such a special
time at the Tennessee Residence, and we could not have done this without the help of our
volunteers and partners, like Tennessee schools, museums and the Tennessee Christmas Tree Growers,
, who made this year’s “Tennessee Music” décor so special. I hope you enjoyed your
tour of this year’s decorations, and Bill and I want to wish you and your family a very
blessed holiday season.