The number of nominations may have been sparse, but the winner of the Bent Twig Garden Club's Christmas Beautification Award was full and green.
"It looked very inviting, hospitable," said Dollye McCarty, who heads the club's Community Service and Civic Projects group, of the winning Christmas decorations by Aubrey and Richard Altmann at 8 Dutton Avenue in Catonsville.
The winners received a certificate, a book and a "contrived flower display," said McCarty on the arrangement of magnolia leaves with a pine cone in the center spray painted gold.
Aubrey Altmann, a Cleveland native whose parents do landscaping, said she and her husband, who hails from Frederick, have decorated their Catonsville home every year since moving to the area from Oella in 2008.
This year's display took about a half day about three weeks before Christmas, she said.
"My husband does the lighting and I do the roping. My mom made the wreath," she said. "We added some little Christmas trees this year. But we pretty much do the same thing every year."
McCarty, an artist and landscape design critic, came up with the idea of the club holding a Christmas holiday contest in which neighbors could nominate decorated houses that met the regulations by the National Federation of Garden Clubs for using natural greenery.
"We're trying to encourage people to decorate," said McCarty, a 33-year member of the garden club. "Not that a lot of people don't. But a lot of people use a lot of lights and artificial decorations."
McCarty said the club is planning a spring contest as well.
She said a house on Edmondson Avenue has already caught her eye with its landscaping reminiscent of a Monet painting.