Deck The Halls

How The Soaps Get Into The Holiday Spirit

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Christmas on soaps is truly a magical time, and the shows go all out to bring the holidays to vivid life in your favorite towns. Dressing the sets for the season starts with the teams behind the scenes. “We try to take our time when striking sets the year before so that everything goes in [to storage] clean, neat and ready for next year,” explains Y&R Set Decorator Jennifer Haybach. “We have these large rolling cabinets with shelves and compartments for all of our sets. I think we all wish we were this organized in our real homes, but then again, we don’t have prop crews to help us in our real lives!”

Although the utmost care goes into ensuring that familiar sets receive their annual festive treatment, it’s a welcome challenge to bring holiday cheer to the latest backdrops. “This year, we were excited to have the opportunity to create several new looks,” says Haybach. “The Abbott mansion and the coffeehouse remained the same, but we were able to create new looks for Society, the Grand Phoenix, Nick’s house and the new room at the Newman ranch. We are always trying to combine the traditional, classic looks of Y&R’s past with new and different Christmas looks. The changes are mostly subtle in existing, established sets, but we can take more risks in some of the newer, more modern sets. An example of this is the white Christmas tree in the Grand Phoenix Hotel lobby.”