MANILA, Philippines?The festive spirit starts at the front door.

Here stands a six-foot-tall Santa Claus with a motion-detector sensor. When a guest knocks, or when a car whizzes by, Santa dances to the tune of ?Jingle Bell Rock.?

?We got it at the Market! Market! mall,? Beth Tamayo says.

That she takes Christmas seriously is pretty evident in her fabulous home décor.

Every year, Beth hires friend and window display artist Deo de la Cruz to spruce up a seven-foot-tall tree.

She is particularly proud of the charms hung on the tree, products of a tenacious search four years ago.

?From a magazine, I learned about a warehouse that sells all sorts of décor and artificial trees,? Beth recalls. ?I didn?t care how far it was; I went all the way to Las Piñas [from Quezon City].?

There she found the store packed with trees of different colors. ?Fuchsia, orange, gold... so beautiful.? She also found boxes upon boxes of crystal ornaments and other trinkets.

?I chose copper, rust and salmon as motif because it complements our gold drapes and wooden furniture,? Beth explains.

Pricey, she describes the décor. ?I?m planning to change [everything] next year pa.?

She?s considering different shades of pink. ?Hot pink, light pink, old rose... my mom is already asking for the copper and rust stuff. She gets all my HMDs (hand-me-downs).?

She combs the entire metropolis in her search. The ceramic belen and angel choir figures are from Shangri-La Mall; a pair of Santa figurines, from a roadside store in Greenhills.

?I don?t care whether it?s from an exclusive store or a flea market, for as long as it?s pretty,? Beth says, while admitting that she stopped herself from buying an eight-foot-tall Polar bear statue in Rustan?s Makati.

Do-it-yourself

Earlier, for the QC home?s interiors, she collaborated with mom Zeny Tamayo and friend Cynthia Tabifranca. ?We saved a lot by doing the interior design ourselves,? Beth points out.

But when it came to the finishings, furniture and paintings, there was no way she would scrimp.

?Most of our furniture are from SM Megamall, proudly Philippine-made. I got some rattan chairs from Union Square, and the sofa is from Habitat,? she says.

When they first moved in here five years ago, Beth and her husband, Chinese businessman Johnny Wong, agreed on a modern, simple yet elegant Mediterranean look.

?With lots of wood,? she enthuses. ?Wooden pieces feel warm and cozy.?

The miniature sailboat on the bar is a gift from a neighbor. ?My husband considers such a gift lucky,? Beth says. ?He got all the Chinese décor and lucky charms from Stanley Market in Hong Kong.?

The living room center table is a rare find, she notes. ?Only three of its kind were created.?

Understandably, the kitchen is the most-fussed-upon area because, like best buddy Judy Ann Santos, Beth is a Culinary Arts graduate.

?When we found this house, it was 90 percent finished,? she recounts. ?I asked the architect not to work on the kitchen anymore because I wanted to buy a modular set from Meta Stone in SM Megamall.?

These days, she spends most of her waking hours in this kitchen, whipping up holiday feasts for Johnny and his two sons (from a previous marriage) Kelvin, 12, and Keion, 9, who are visiting from Guam.

E-mail: bayanisandiego@hotmail.com