Darla Skiles honors her grandmother by preserving Christmas memories in her former home.

Growing up, Darla Skiles spent Christmases at her grandmother’s house, where the season came alive with timeless traditions. She helped wrap presents, decorated mantles, and gathered with family in front of the fireplace to open gifts.

After her beloved grandmother passed away at the age of 95, Darla made the heartfelt decision to purchase the property, which held decades of family history and holiday memories. The home was formerly a modest two-bedroom, one-bathroom farmhouse near Binder Lake with a family room and a rock fireplace added roughly 50 years ago by Darla’s father, who owns Dennis Crocker Construction. After purchasing the home in 2020, Darla spent 10 months renovating it with the help of her father.

“He remodeled the entire home and finished the basement,” Darla says. “Now, it’s a five-bedroom, three-bath house. He also lifted the ceilings, so all the ceilings are vaulted, installed the exposed wooden beams, and built my staircase from two of my grandmother’s oak trees from the backyard that had to be torn down.”

Amid the sweeping changes, Darla made sure to preserve a few sentimental aspects of the house: the rock fireplace, her grandmother’s chandelier, which was purchased from France, and a doorway in the kitchen that overlooks Binder Lake.

“Binder Park was basically like our second backyard growing up because the house is just in such close proximity to the lake that we had a little path that we would walk down to go fishing, go to the falls where the dam is, and watch the geese,” Darla reminisces.

Upon completion, the house has once again become a family gathering place.

“I love hosting Christmas and having all of my family and siblings over,” Darla says. “It’s definitely like carrying on another generation of having the home be a gathering spot for all the family members.”

Christmas also happens to be Darla’s favorite holiday, so it’s the perfect time of year for her to utilize her many designer and artistic talents.

“I usually take about a week to pull all of my trees out and get them decorated because each tree has different decorations,” she says. “We have our traditional tree, but inevitably, I end up adding a tree almost every year. And then I have Kristina Aust with Busch’s Florist come in, and she always puts her own little razzle dazzle to it.”

Darla currently has eight Christmas trees, and counting, each styled differently. Her favorite tree, however, is the one that sits in her entryway.

“My entryway tree is my favorite just because it’s filled with a mixture of our family ornaments, pictures, and things that have been collected over time, like cookie cutters,” she says. “The Rudolph topper on the tree also used to be my grandmother’s.”

Many of the other trees are also adorned with ornaments that Darla crafted herself.

“I’ve always had a creative side, but there were a couple of years that my friend and I would come up with different Christmas ornaments or decoration ideas, and we would just make a whole bunch of them for our homes or for our family and friends to give away as gifts,” she explains. “And then I started making them out of necessity because I would get another tree and make each tree unique.”

Though the house looks vastly different today than it did decades prior, the heart and spirit of the home remain unchanged as it was built with love, care, and the deep-rooted desire to bring family together — especially during the most wonderful time of the year.