Celebrating 22 years of dressing up for Christmas, aiding hospice
By Sheila Brady
Homes for the Holidays is an iconic helping of glitter when celebrating Christmas in the Capital.
For the past 22 years, a dedicated band of volunteers has donated thousands of hours, countless jars of chutney and millions of flowers as homeowners open their doors for three days in November, inviting more than 40,000 curious strangers into their living rooms.
Crazy.
Yet, year after year, well-heeled homeowners from Rockcliffe Park to Manotick to
the Glebe head to their cottages so area florists, hundreds of volunteers and up to 2,000 visitors pay to gasp and be impressed with helpings of holiday glitter.
The massive organizational endeavour has raised more than $2.6 million for the cash-strapped Hospice Care Ottawa (HCO), where families turn when illness turns serious, finding comfort at the end of life.
The province only supports a portion of expenses to operate HCO, which has grown to three sites, including May Court in Old Ottawa South, Ruddy-Shenkman in Kanata and the newly opened Maison de l’Est in Orleans.
The financial reality means HCO, which offers its residential services, day hospice and grief counselling free of charge, has to raise $2.65 million in the community every year to keep the lights on and to pay its professional staff of 100.
HCO counts on 750 volunteers to work alongside staff in the three locations and in day programs, grief and bereavement counselling.
“We started out as the young guard 22 years ago,” says Sheila Whyte, owner of Thyme & Again and the honorary chair of Homes for the Holidays 2024. “Now we are the old guard.
“Hospice is so very important at the end of life,” says Sheila, who was with her sister in Vancouver when she died at home. “It is so important to be loved and supported when dying and hospice is the next best thing to being at home.”
During the past two decades, Sheila and her irrepressible culinary buddy and community booster Joseph Cull have spearheaded the food component of the tour’s Pop-Up Shop, which also showcases crafts, artisans and specialty items.
For the past two decades, Joseph has taken over the kitchen at May Court on Cameron Avenue in Old Ottawa South, enthusiastically leading his “slice and dice” gang to create jars of plum butter & chutneys.
“It’s 100 per cent profit,” says Joseph, who brings veggies and rhubarb from his family farm in Douglas, Ontario, and successfully solicits food donations from grocers, including McKeen Metro on Bank Street. “We pick up the food and then create. This is a very social happening.
In the beginning, it was community volunteer Lillian Smith and Hulse, Playfair & McGarry president Sharon McGarry who brought the idea of a holiday homes tour to the board of Hospice Care Ottawa.
Lillian had seen a holiday tour in southern Ontario and knew it would work in Ottawa.
“The board agreed and away we went,” says Sharon, who has supported the Pop-Up Shop since the beginning. “The tour has become a social outing for friends. They return year after year.”
Homes for the Holidays was an immediate hit and within a year, Sheila and Prime Minister Paul Martin opened 24 Sussex where visitors checked out the well-worn kitchen.
COVID interrupted the hot run, prompting hospice to introduce a virtual tour.
The tour of seven luxe homes returned in November, with the Pop-Up Shop located at Ruddy Shenkman Hospice in Kanata. Here’s a look at two of the 2024 homes.
5801 Rideau Valley Drive, Manotick
Florist: Mill Street Florist
Sue Kennedy is a detailed child of the 70s, hunting for authentic furniture and decor on Marketplace and in thrift and bargain shops to furnish her sprawling 5,800-square-foot home overlooking the Rideau River outside of Manotick.
The Manotick real estate agent and her husband, Todd Kennedy, bought the bungalow in 2014, immediately starting to plan renovations.
Ottawa architect Christopher Simmonds designed the entrance, adding a spectacular covered walk and portico accented with slim slats that became a trademark of the architect’s design portfolio.
Friedmann Weinhardt, an accomplished kitchen designer who tragically passed away, transformed the kitchen into a sleek combo of white cabinets and oversized island edged in wood.
The home was a finalist in the Greater Ottawa Home Builders’ Association’s Housing Design Awards in 2018 and the same year a shining participant in the Homes for the Holidays tour. Manotick’s Mill Street Florist filled the home with flowers and was back again this November for a repeat performance.
This year the Rideau Valley Drive home was also a contender in the housing awards for a wee jewel of a powder room tucked into a corner of the basement, which features enough video games to please critical teens and enough equipment to back a band and karaoke performer.
The home was also a contender for design honours for Sue Kennedy’s sophisticated main level office with its sleek floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. The home, which comes with an indoor pool and gracious outdoor spaces overlooking the river, was in the running for overall design honours as well.
Sue Kennedy, the project manager for the renovations, is a particular shopper, haunting the Web and area shops for authentic 70s furniture. She is not afraid to spend money on unique lighting and has the discipline to shop for Christmas presents that bring to mind childhood Christmases.
And she remembers hunting for bargains at the May Court Bargain Box on Laurier Avenue in Sandy Hill with her mother.
Photo by Ashley Fraser, Luxe Magazine
“I was born in ’72 and I remember repurchasing items. It brings me joy and I feel young again,” says the 52-year-old. She especially likes to find presents her husband got when he was a teen and to arrange them under a white artificial Christmas tree that will sit in their sunken family room.
95 Chippewa Ave. St. Claire Garden
Florist: Alta Vista Flowers
Nadia and Lino Bassi’s two-storey modern, stone home in the established west-
end community of St. Clair Garden, is spacious, filled with light, repeated details and finishes that tease the eye, while connecting the rooms.
“It’s all intentional. There is nothing thrown in,” says Nadia Bassi, a veteran interior decorator with Ottawa’s Restyled Spaces & Home Staging. Nadia used her skills, turning to designer Kelly Maiorino of Unique Spaces for advice after buying the 3,200-square-foot home in 2019 when it was at the drywall stage.
“My vision was for a light, airy classic modern home. Easy and seamless.”
Construction is nothing new to the Bassi family.
Lino grew up in the industry and now owns BGC Construction and Restoration.
Today, the home to three grown daughters and their large two-year-old doddle, Dallas, is a blend of whites, creams and black accent walls with simple grey oak wooden shelves. The white kitchen repeats the grey oak on the cabinet fronts.
Nadia is also a fan of trim detailing for texture on painted walls and grooving on the oversized front wooden door.
Careful use of glass opens the staircase adding extra helpings of visual space.
She sold all of their old furniture, buying clean modern pieces from Mobilia and MYHome furniture to fit easily into the modern spaces.
Come Christmas Eve, the family will gather at the Chippewa home, sharing wine and food, admiring cream coloured, modern decorations.
A white tree will be covered in gold and black ribbons and bronze, sage green and creamy ornaments on a nine-foot artificial tree in the front window and a smaller, eight-foot tree in the living room.
Nadia’s mother and father live two blocks away and a sister is in Barrhaven.
“I love Christmas and family,” says Nadia. “It is high energy.”
The dining room table is not big enough to hold the whole family, yet everyone will be within sight thanks to an open concept design linked by colour and textures.
