Every year, the staff at Elvis Presley‘s Graceland transforms the house and grounds for the Christmas season. Visitors come from far and wide during the holiday season to marvel at the twinkling lights and Elvis’ traditional decorations.
According to the Graceland website, this year’s decorations include hundreds of blue lights that line the driveway, a life-size Nativity scene, and a Santa sleigh and reindeer on the north lawn. In addition to all of that, the rooms of the house are filled with numerous decorations and Christmas trees.
If you can’t visit Graceland this Christmas season, we have the next best thing for you right here. In the past, Graceland has shared videos that capture all of the hard work involved in preparing the house for the holidays. Uploaded in 2013 and 2016, these videos show time-lapse recordings of the staff decorating Christmas trees in different rooms of the house.
The 2013 video is the longest, and also offers a peek at the outdoor decorations at the beginning of the clip. After that, it jumps to the time-lapse footage of the staff decorating the dining room Christmas tree. You get to see what was likely hours of work in just a matter of two minutes as the staff sets up the tree, strings lights, and decorates it with traditional-style ornaments. Oh, and don’t forget the tinsel!
Toward the end, the video goes back to normal speed as it shows the staff depositing a heap of wrapped presents under the tree. With those additions, the tree was complete, and looked absolutely gorgeous!
The 2016 video is shorter than its predecessor, and shows a different tree being set up. The white, snowy-looking tree was placed in Graceland’s living room and was strung with white lights, rather than multi-colored ones on the dining room tree.
Also filmed in a time-lapse style, the video depicts the task of setting up the tree from start to finish. The whole thing ends once the staff members place the angel on top of the tree and finish arranging wrapped presents around its base.
You can watch the Graceland staff set up the living room tree in the video below. If you’d like to see all of these beautiful decorations in person, Graceland keeps them up until January 8, which is Elvis’ birthday.
Have any of you been to Graceland during the Christmas season? We’d love to hear about your visits if so!