Anyone who’s gotten to know Kathy Hilton via her breakout turn on season 11 of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills knows she’s the type to go big or go home—and with Christmas, she does both. “I normally start decorating in October,” Hilton tells AD, “then keep adding until December.” The tchotchkes and trees stay up until February, and from Thanksgiving onward, there’s nothing but the Holiday Traditions music channel playing throughout the house. Hilton says she thinks about Christmas all year long.
The spirit of the season starts on the outside of the home, sans bulbs. “I can’t do lights,” Hilton declares. There’s no obscure Bel Air ordinance to blame for this. Hilton admits, “It’s just that I’m not actually good at it, and I like things perfect.” Instead, garlands of fresh apples, oranges, and grapes welcome guests into the 14,980-square-foot manse.
For those uninitiated in the Cult of Kathy, the name Hilton may bring visions of sugar-plum fairies dispatched from all over Beverly Hills to craft her perfect winter wonderland, but fans of the Bravo darling know better. She does employ some assistance (“I have a wonderful lady that helps me, and she has a young man that comes and helps with all the stuff that’s really high up, because that’s a little scary,” Hilton says), but every touch is purely personal.
Each room in Hilton’s home—which includes seven bedrooms, eight bathrooms, multiple sitting rooms, a butler’s pantry, and an open plan specifically designed for entertaining—has a different feel to it. “My blue-and-white room reminds me of Southampton, New York. My library reminds me of New York City, in a town house or an apartment, with the dark wood… Then, if you’re standing in the living room, it’s all butter yellow, pale blue, creams, with a little bit of apricot or maybe shrimp or blush.”
The holiday decorations adjust accordingly to the vibe of their milieu. In the wood room, where Hilton and her sister Kyle Richards famously ate off TV trays on RHOBH, those decorations include hundreds of Santa figurines, especially Annalee and Lynn West pieces she’s collected. The entryway has evolved over the years: “I used to do it all in pretty pale aqua and silver and gold, and then I started thinking, I don’t want to just match and have it look like a hotel lobby. So the last few years I’ve been doing what you see”—red, gold, white, and tinsel galore—“and next year it’ll be a whole new thing.”
There are so many artificial Christmas trees in the house that she has to count them out to keep track: “I have one in the library, one in the living room. One in the sunroom and one in the entry. Boy, I could have a sale here.” There’s also a tree that Hilton leaves bare until Christmas, so that the family can trim it together. “Usually I do not let the family touch anything. I’m a control freak when it comes to the ornaments. My husband likes to hang some of them, and I’m like, No, no, no, Rick, no.”
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This year’s festivities may be a tad less grand than years past, thanks to COVID and the outsize November wedding celebration of Hilton’s daughter Paris and Carter Reum. “Three days does take a lot out of you,” says the mom of four. However, she promises that Christmas will be classically Kathy Hilton.
Come Christmas morning, there’ll be a laid-back, family-only, pajamas-required affair. “I do a really fabulous Christmas day brunch.” And to be clear, Hilton does not involve caterers for lunch. Hilton herself cooks “a frittata with really nice vegetables, and sour cream and caviar, and these little cinnamon rolls, bacon, and pancakes with melted butter and really good syrup.”
Make no mistake, though, Christmas wasn’t always so informal in the Hilton house. Paris and her sister Nicky Hilton Rothschild used to joke that the chairs were just for decoration, no sitting allowed. Their mom admits: “I lightened up about 15 years ago.”
And as cozy and comfortable as her home has become, one thing Hilton won’t do is rest on her (Christmas) laurels. “I want to redo most of the house,” she says, even though she loves it as is. But don’t have a gorilla—the home will undoubtedly keep that quintessential Kathy Hilton quirk: “I’m thinking of doing pale leopard sofas,” she says of her burgeoning decor vision. “And I love lacquer.”
