Marine Corps Base Quantico -- On Dec. 7, attendees of the Quantico Garden Club’s 27th annual Christmas homes tour were welcomed to snoop through seven officers’ homes aboard Quantico, all festively decorated.

“Military spouses are always warm and hospitable and eager to share their talents with other military families,” said Janet Delwiche, Quantico Garden Club president. “There is a bond between military spouses like no other, whether your spouse is retired or active duty.”

Quantico Garden Club was established in 1950 as the Quantico Officer’s Wives Garden Club and is one of the oldest clubs aboard Quantico. Membership is open to anyone older than 18 with a military ID card.

The Christmas tour of homes has been held annually since 1988, when member Connie Knowles first suggested it. Quarters One, the historic home of the commanding general of Marine Corps Combat Development Command, has been on the tour every year since the beginning. The club’s members solicit six to seven additional homes to visit. Knowles and her helpers decorate Quarters One and the occupants of the other houses are responsible for their own decorations.

Quarters One was built in 1920 and has been the home of 48 Combat Development Command commanding generals, seven of who went on to be commandant of the Marine Corps. Notable guests to the home include Edward, Duke of Windsor, Dwight D. Eisenhower, and George W. and Laura Bush.

Teri Walsh, who has lived in the home since October, said she loved the elegant white-and-gold mantelpiece arrangements created by the Garden Club members.

“My style is more country—actually now it’s countries,” Walsh said, pointing out her collection of German Santa Claus figures, a doll clad in traditional Russian costume seated on a chair and other ornaments she acquired in Japan, Korea, England, and Holland.

Visitors to the home of Kate Brilakis, which was built in 1920 and is one of the oldest residential buildings on Quantico, were met at the door by a pair of tall Wellington boots stuffed with holly, pinecones and mistletoe and a small chalkboard bearing the message “Door is open, please come in!!”

Inside, the house was redolent of fresh greens. Brilakis said she visits home and garden centers and tree lots and requests the branches that are trimmed from the base of Christmas trees. She uses these to fill baskets and vases and arrange on mantelpieces in the house.

Brilakis’s holiday decorating style was classic red and green.

“My theme is whatever I have in the bin!” she said.

That includes many eclectic pieces the family acquired on their overseas tours. A tapestry of Saint Nicholas bought in Germany hangs at the top of the stairs. The colorful pottery jars brimming with evergreens came from Soufflenheim, Germany. Holiday greeting cards and family photographs filled a wooden feed trough they found on a farm near Bruges, Belgium and repurposed as a coffee table.

Visitors were welcome to look around both floors of the house, which was exciting for Clara Jeffrey and Phyllis Phillips.

“We go on this tour every year and we’ve never gotten to go upstairs before!” Jeffrey said.

“I loved seeing all the neat, old-fashioned things,” Phillips said.

Lynda Furness said she started decorating her home for the tour one week ago.

“Start early,” she advised holiday home decorators.

She had three trees to decorate. The family tree in the living room, where they will open presents on Christmas day, is hung with heirloom ornaments passed down by parents and grandparents and with ornaments made by their four children. The Marine Corps tree in the breakfast nook is a tradition the family started during her husband’s year-long deployment to Afghanistan. And an elegant red and gold tree in the dining room celebrates the colors of both Christmas and the Marine Corps.

“I just love everything about Christmas,” Furness said.

The tangy, cinnamon-y scent of cider wafted through the home of Carrie Murray. Murray said her holiday decorating style is eclectic and family-centered.

“It’s based on things that are important to our children, like the nativity set and the Advent calendar,” she said. “And you can never have enough lights.”

She spent one day decorating the house with the help of her daughters, nieces, mother- and brother-in-law.

The stuffed fish wearing a Santa Claus hat and the silver deer figurines throughout the house reflect her husband’s love of fishing and hunting.

“It’s no secret to us all that home is where the Marine Corps sends us and our home reflects that,” Madeline Manzanet wrote in the tour guide book. She described her holiday decorations as “traditional with an element of Asian fusion,” represented by the celadon Nativity scene from Thailand that she purchased while in Asia for her husband’s deployment to Okinawa.

Andrea Kutilek also has a prized Nativity set that came to her Quantico home from overseas. Hers is hand-crafted from olive wood by Jewish artisans, bought by her husband in Israel. It’s also a music box, which her three daughters love.

“Christmas is our favorite time of year as a family,” Kutilek said, “even more so when we can all be here together.”

“As a Marine Corps family, the holidays are even more special when we are home together with no one deployed,” Teri Walsh said. “Christmas is all about family and togetherness. It puts you in that happy place.”