DAVID BLAIR has 26 decorated Christmas trees inside his two-bedroom Studio City home. Still, he's used fewer than half of the 10,000 ornaments in his burgeoning collection, which now overflows his closets, garage and rented storage space. He continues to collect, cannot seem to stop.
"There are trees in every room, even the kitchen and bath. It's kind of an obsession," he cheerfully admits. But not one you'd want to cure.
Step through Blair's front door and you're awash in the cozy glow of this year's fantasy: a 30-foot-long living room that feels uncluttered despite its seven trees, each with a different theme.
His "antique tree" is tall and full-bodied, all its ornaments family heirlooms or vintage finds gathered over years. A spun glass butterfly from the 1920s is one favorite. A blown glass bunny with an expressive painted face, from 1930s Germany, is another. The tea and coffee pots made of black glass are from his grandparents' ornament collection -- a remembrance of childhood yules in Coshocton, Ohio, where his passion for Christmas decorating began.
In a far corner, his Asian-theme tree is hung with fragile pagodas, lanterns, kimonos and ginger jars, which look like paper but are actually spun glass. The room's main tree, majestic and flocked in white, announces the color theme -- all silver, blue and white -- and every ornament apparently meaningful to Blair.
Meet him in March, May or August and he'll tell you what ornament he's searched for on the Internet that day. Find him away on vacation, and he'll list all the holiday decor shops in the area. "We pull into a hotel," he says, "and I instantly grab a phone book to see what Christmas stores are around."
He and his partner, Dan Darwish, traveled to Chicago to view the Martha Stewart-designed tree at the State Street Macy's, better known as the old Marshall Field's downtown. Last weekend Blair was in New York to check out Christmas windows on Fifth Avenue. He and Darwish are planning a trip to Italy, for which his ornament-hunting agenda is already prepared.
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BLAIR'S creative flair includes an eye for restraint. Sure, there's what some might call an overabundance of trees. But the ambience is muted. No glare, no ornaments with sound or moving parts, no lights twinkling on and off. Nothing to mar the serene glimmer of a home bathed in ecumenical holiday cheer.
