It’s lucky that Miranda Dickson’s Edinburgh New Town house has a very spacious attic.
For 11 months of the year, this rooftop space is stuffed with 20 large boxes of Christmas decorations.
However, they’ve all emerged from their bubble-wrapped hibernation, as this homeowner, who lives in the property - her childhood home - with her two teenage children, Violet and Zachary, and dog, Dylan, doesn’t do things by halves.
Her pad is a riot of spangly cheer, and it will be featured on this year’s Scotland’s Christmas Home of the Year on BBC One Scotland on Monday, December 15.
The judges - Anna Campbell-Jones, Banjo Beale and Danny Campbell - will be casting an eye over this festive cornucopia and deciding if it will be their winner. The competition includes four other properties, including a ‘party palace’ in Millport, a flat in Burntisland, a farm steading near Peterhead, and a Cumnock home.
“What I’m looking for in a Christmas home is a really deliberate effort to create an atmosphere where the perfect family moments can exist,” says Campbell.
Campbell-Jones adds; “I’m looking to be surprised by new ideas but also by those well-worn traditions that are brought out every year and really warm your soul”.
Dickson’s style, with a home that they’re describing as the Townhouse of Treasure, might be described as maximalist.
Her favourite additions are also rather retro.
“I have a lot of decorations, but I especially love vintage deer. I became kind of slightly obsessed with collecting them. They include the BabyCham Seventies ones, and Sixties-era velvet deer,” says Dickson, who has a black Barbie doll ‘fairy’ at the top of one of her trees. “I got the vast majority of them when I lived in the US for seven years. American eBay is the best thing ever. If you see that stuff in this country, it's 10 times the price”.
These herds appear in grotto-like displays on mantelpieces throughout the grand property.
They also pop-up on the dining table, along with a collection of candles and mini Christmas trees that are positioned on a lacey runner that resembles a snowy embankment.
Dickson loves ‘tablescaping’, as she’s inherited an appreciation of festive hosting.
"My parents would have a tree, but the season was really about entertaining, having fun times and people around, and sharing food and sitting at the table together. That's my very strong memory of Christmas as a child,” she says. “We’d always have cute stuff on the table. My mother always made a big effort with that. I've always wanted to make that the centerpiece. I think it's so nice having people sit down without their phones”.
Dickson’s most recent shindig was a festive afternoon tea, at which she made goodies including mince pie cookies, sour cherry and orange scones with homemade plum jam, and gingerbread. The guests got to sample these in a lovely dining space, with five mismatched chandeliers hanging above the table, midnight blue curtains and teal floral wallpaper.
On Christmas Day, the family will be eating here. Dickson won’t find cooking a chore.
“I love turkey, and cooking that meal, and the way the house smells, I love getting up at six o'clock and starting the gravy, and having an icy cold glass of Champagne. The whole ritual,” she says. “We usually eat at around two o'clock. We’ll do something different for dessert. I think I'm going to make Christmas ice cream sundaes with different sauces, because I'm really into making ice cream right now”.
As far as trees go, Dickson has five - two big, and three little ones, scattered throughout the house.
This year, for the sake of the dog and to avoid mess, they’re all artificial, and her favourite is a very unusual colour.
“Last year I bought this pink snowy tree, which I love. I've got that in the dining room, and I think why did I wait all my life to buy a pink tree? I’ve always loved pink,” says Dickson, whose favourite interior decorating colours are this hue, as well as green, red and off-white.
This love of colour is evidenced by the fact that the front door is painted a pale calamine lotion shade. Also, there’s plenty of it in the kitchen, where there are marshmallow pink tiles and apple green cabinets. Currently, in this room, the shelves are fringed with tinsel and icicle strands, and there are paper lanterns of all different colours hanging from the light fittings.
Dickson obviously puts lots of work into this house. Not a single corner has been neglected.
It sounds like her family doesn't get too involved in the annual transformation. Apparently, the kids used to help when they were little, but are quite hands-off in their teen years.
“I would say that there's kind of an expectation now, because I love decorating things, they just wait for the house to be transformed into some crazy winter wonderland palace,” Dickson says.
We’re sure they’re never disappointed.
It all works beautifully, since this home owner has the ideal canvas for her ideas. Although her irreverent style might be reminiscent of the Sixties and Seventies, and the Georgian house was built in the early Nineteenth century, it still has the perfect proportions for big and bold statements.
As Dickson says; “In the way that I decorate the property, I'm sympathetic to the architecture. What I try to do is go maximalist and lean into features like the fireplaces. If I was living in a little cottage somewhere, I would probably approach decorating in a slightly different way”.
Scotland’s Christmas Home of the Year is on BBC iPlayer and BBC One Scotland on Monday December 15 at 8-9pm
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