CHRISTMAS AT THE NORDIC PINEAPPLE

What happens at the Nordic Pineapple for Christmas?

When it comes to Christmas decorating, The Nordic Pineapple takes it to another level. We have eleven trees to decorate, four mantles, the stairs to the second floor and what we call a Gnome Overload. Christmas Gnomes have increased in popularity over the last few years, but they are even more meaningful to us because of how similar they look to the Scandinavian Santa, known as Nisse. Last year Kate wrote a blog for us about Norwegian Christmas, it's a wonderful tradition.

"I grew up with the Nisse in my home, before the gnome became really popular in the states." Kjersten recalls. "The traditional Scandinavian Christmas Tree has straw ornaments on it, our Christmas Tree was covered in straw ornaments!"
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This year, it only took two days to decorate the inn. That's because last year, they took the time to wire the ornaments to all the trees. "We have a room full of Christmas Trees in our basement, all year long. It's a storage room, it looks like a forest of trees." The trees now go downstairs all decorated and ready to go for the next Christmas season.  
For the guest suites, the theme is "It's a Wonderful Life". "My best friend in high school was obsessed with this movie, we would watch it every year. I have the entire "It's a Wonderful Life" Christmas Village, all the houses from the movie. I break them up into little vignettes and put them in all the rooms."

They start decorating the inn the Friday after thanksgiving, the whole weekend is all about decorating and getting ready for Santa's visit. He always comes the first Sunday of December at the Nordic Pineapple. It's also always the same weekend as the St. Johns Festival of Lights, so everyone at the inn has a chance to get into the holiday spirit.

We have a family that stays with us at Christmas every year and we've been celebrating together for the last five years, since our first Christmas here. Their extended family will all check in on Christmas Eve and they will check out the day after Christmas. This St. Johns family has been with us from the very beginning and have booked for the next ten years! One of our favorite memories is the year they helped us wrap presents at two in the morning. We hadn't wrapped a single gift; we were so far behind! "We like to think that when you stay here, you become like family."
We also host a New Year's Eve dinner. Our busiest week of the entire year will be from Christmas Eve to New Year's Day. "We love Christmas, because it's like catching up with old friends!"

We hope you enjoy some of our favorite decorations. We hope you'll consider posting and sharing some of your favorites with us as well.

Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas from The Nordic Pineapple!