Day 305 of 365 Days of Boulderado Photos ~ Tree Coming Down

It's really difficult to say which more dramatic, watching the tree go up, or watching the tree come down. The Tree Team starts at the bottom pulling off ornaments and lights, then takes a chainsaw to the empty branches. They then work their way up the tree. The branches are composted, and the trunk is chopped into firewood, as we try to be as "green" as a hotel as possible.

Day 301 of 365 Days of Boulderado Photos ~ Ball Ornaments

The ornaments are getting put away, the lights are being wound up, and the tree will soon be a distant memory in a composting heap.

Day 297 of 365 Days of Boulderado Photos ~ Tree with Stained-Glass Ceiling

The very top of our Christmas tree is just below our lobby's stained-glass ceiling canopy. Lovely to see the glass glittering while the tree lights twinkle!

Day 295 of 365 Days of Boulderado Photos ~ Decorating the Tree

I've been waiting all month to share with you how we decorate the top half of our Christmas tree, and here it is! We have to use long poles attached with hooks at one end. As one member of the Tree Team put it, "The hardest part every year is getting that first ornament onto the tree. Once the first gets on, the rest goes a lot easier."

Day 294 of 365 Days of Boulderado Photos ~ Tree from Staircase

Everyone who climbs up or down our cantilevered cherrywood staircase is confronted with an amazing view of the tree in the lobby against the spectacular ceiling and Mezzanine.

Day 292 of 365 Days of Boulderado Photos ~ Candy Canes on Tree

Not even Boulder's largest living indoor tree would be complete without some candy canes on its boughs!

Day 289 of 365 Days of Boulderado Photos ~ Wires for Tree

You'll need to look very closely at this photo of our Christmas tree to see the wires on either side keeping it steady. This is one of our safety precautions for having a 28' tree in our lobby, as the wires are connected to nearby pillars, which anchor the tree.

Day 287 of 365 Days of Boulderado Photos ~ Ornaments with Tile Floor

The same song always pops into my head whenever I look at our tree ornaments . . . "Big ones, small ones, some as big as your head!"

Day 286 of 365 Days of Boulderado Photos ~ Ribboning the Tree

This is potentially one of the most dramatic moments I captured during the tree decorating process. Yes, that is a real piece of fabric that is being fluffed and coaxed to wrap around the tree -- no shortcuts here!

Day 281 of 365 Days of Boulderado Photos ~ Ornaments with Ladder

I snapped this shot while the Christmas tree was being decorated. I wonder if they picked the ornaments based on how well they hang between the rungs of our ladders for decorating ease?

Day 279 of 365 Days of Boulderado Photos ~ 2011 Christmas Tree

Here it is, in all its splendor and glory! Our 2011 Christmas tree is a 28' white fir from New Mexico.

Day 275 of 365 Days of Boulderado Photos ~ Tree with Ladders

The bottom half of the tree is decorated using our three tallest ladders. Stay tuned for a special "behind the scenes" photo in December that shows how we decorate the top half!

Day 274 of 365 Days of Boulderado Photos ~ Tree Strategizing

Here you can see three members of the Tree Team discussing their strategy for placement of ornaments and ribbon to make the best Christmas tree ever.

Day 272 of 365 Days of Boulderado Photos ~ Christmas Tree Decorations

Our Christmas tree will arrive this week, so we have pulled all the decorations, accessories, and tools in preparation. We have a dozen jumbo tubs filled with ornaments, not to mention the HUGE tree stand we need to anchor our lobby tree.

Day 266 of 365 Days of Boulderado Photos ~ Lobby Tree from 1920s

Our annual Christmas tree will be delivered and decorated next week, so to celebrate I thought I would share a photo from the 1920s of a Boulderado Christmas lobby. This photo gave us the idea in 1988 to bring back the larger-than-life Christmas tree, which usually ranges in size from twenty-five to twenty-eight feet tall. Click here to learn more about our Christmas tree, and how it could help you win an overnight stay at the Hotel Boulderado!

Christmas Tree Delivery

I'm a bad, bad blogger for not blogging for so long, so I have an extra-special treat to make it up to you all. Most people familiar with the Hotel Boulderado knows that during the holidays, we feature an enormous tree in our lobby. The tradition dates back to the 1930s, as shown with this historic photo:The tree is always delivered on the Monday after Thanksgiving, and this year, Claire from the Concierge Desk documented the delivery and hoisting of the tree, including one very scary moment for our stained-glass canopy ceiling.

This year's tree came from just north of Taos, New Mexico, and is a staggering 29' white fir. Our Maintenance Department takes on the task of bringing the tree into the hotel and placing it in the lobby. Here, you can see some of our Maintenance Men checking out this year's challenge.

Believe it or not, the tree is brought in through our front door every year. We open up the doors as wide as they will go and then the Maintenance Department does their best to push, pull, drag, and coax the tree into the lobby.

Once the tree is in, we let it lay out on the tile floor so our "tree aestheticians" can decorate the tippy-tippy top. Rhonda and her helpers from Living Interiors are always on hand to help with this part of the process.

Claire's "Levitating Tree" shot

Once the top part of the tree is done, the Maintenance Department uses a system of chains and double-pulleys to hoist the tree to a standing position.

Hoisting ...

...hoisting...

...hoisting...

And this is the point of the hoisting that we realized that this year's tree was a wee bit too big for our ceiling. If you watch the videos, you can see the top of the tree poking one of the panels out of place. Luckily, the panes aren't welded into the frame -- they simply sit in the frame.

The moment that had many of us worried!

We had to saw off the very top of the tree to make it fit in our lobby, but it's there now and fully decorated. Stop by to see it before December 29th, when it will be taken down -- and I strongly urge you to take a stellar photo of it. Stay tuned to our Facebook page for the reason why!

Christmas at the Boulderado

It's Christmas Eve, which means that the holiday decorations that have bedazzled the Hotel Boulderado all month will soon be packed up and put away til next year. If you haven't stopped by to see the tree, be sure to do so before Tuesday the 29th. We'll be taking the tree down that day to make room for Dressed in Black, our band for New Year's Eve. Here's some fun facts about the decorations that have been in place for the last month:

• 1000 feet of garland and 2400 white lights are strung throughout the historic and north wings
• Rhonda tied all the bows by hand and used 1500 feet of ribbon to do so
• The tree in the lobby is adorned with 1700 white lights and hundreds of ornaments

December at the Boulderado

It feels like just yesterday that I was filling y'all in on what was happening at the Hotel Boulderado in November, and now it's time to do the same for December! Rhonda is out in the lobby right now with our Maintenance Department, putting the final touches on our tree. This year's evergreen is a 28' white fir from New Mexico, and it's beautiful! If you are able to stop by the lobby over the next few weeks, you should definitely do so just to marvel at the tree's size. Kids especially get a kick out of it -- "It must be a hundred feet tall!" -- so bring them around once school breaks for the year. Here's what else we're cooking up this month:

• Holiday Tea series continues with Nutcracker Teas, Holiday Bazaar Teas, and carolers -- oh my!
• Our Christmas Day Buffet is filling up quickly! Many local families have made the Boulderado a part of their holiday tradition, and close to a third of the people who attend our buffets do so because they enjoyed on in the past. Thanksgiving sold out early this year, so if you are looking to book Christmas with us, call today!
• We were recently voted the #1 Place to Celebrate New Year's Eve in downtown Boulder! Find out why with our New Year's Eve Gala Ball. Later this month, I will be doing a blog post about the history and tradition related to this special night -- the official anniversary of the Boulderado's opening!
  

Whether you celebrate Christmas or Kwanzaa, Chanukah or nothing at all, we here at the Boulderado would like to take a moment to wish you the best the season has to offer -- warmth, joy, peace, and spending time with loved ones.

Rhonda and Living Interiors

If you've stopped by the Hotel Boulderado in the past 15 years, you've probably noticed the fresh floral arrangements in common areas like the lobby, the bathrooms, and even out front on Yuko's desk. Rhonda, who owns and operates Living Interiors, is a familiar face around the hotel. She stops by each week to bring in fresh displays of gorgeous flowers. Rhonda was also responsible for the creepy credenza we featured in our haunted lobby this year, and she loaded it up with plenty of spiders, bats, ravens, and snakes. If you've ever visited the Boulderado during the holidays, you are familiar with the enormous Christmas tree we put up every year. Rhonda and her team take on the daunting task of decorating the 28' live evergreen with courage, tasteful ornaments, and help from our Maintenance Department. Rhonda is also a perennial Preferred Vendor and attends our Bridal Show regularly. (For Sunday's show, Rhonda brought in some elm branches she collected from her own backyard and used them as the base for a striking arrangement featuring hanging votive candles.) We hear feedback from our clients all the time about her beautiful handiwork, reasonable prices, and long-lasting arrangements.