One of the most beautifully decorated homes you’ll find this Christmas in Jim Thorpe is The Parsonage Bed & Breakfast on West Broadway.

Innkeepers Michael Rivkin and Jeffri Coleman have created a wonderland of carefully curated ornaments over their four decades together and have displayed them in a magnificent setting among the art and furnishings of Mauch Chunk’s oldest residence.

The largest tree, set in a two-window bay in the dining room, is filled top to bottom with ornaments that the pair have collected over the past 40 years. Each ornament is reflective of its owners, with many coming from places around the world where Michael and Jeffri have traveled. Others, such as the menorah, are symbolic, as Michael is Jewish.

The tree takes three days to decorate.

“We talk about each ornament and where we got it and the story behind it,” says Jeffri. “It can be a melancholy thing, but it’s still a fun process, reflecting on 40 years of memories.”

To say the tree is painstakingly decorated is an understatement. Finding tinsel each year is difficult, but once its been acquired, Michael adorns the tree with the shiny strands by gently blowing small tufts onto the branches. The result is nothing short of spectacular.

Moving to the main hall, there is a tabletop tree that’s especially fun as all of the ornaments displayed there are food-related.

Michael and Jeffri met in 1978 at the Hotel Hershey where they were both in culinary school. That connection is celebrated in spectacular fashion with colorful fruits, vegetables, pastries, and even condiments, such as mustard, which are new to the tree this year.

In the living room, is a tree that is near and dear to Jeffri’s heart — a feather tree that was created by a woman in Ohio.

All of the ornaments on this tree come from Jeffri’s family, going back four generations. Some of the oldest ornaments were carried on the boat from Ireland by his grandmother.

“It was such a luxury,” he says, for her to have those ornaments.

Knowing that ups the sentimental value to almost priceless.

In addition to the trees, there are other bursts of Christmas throughout the house.

At the top of the stairs from the first level is a giant bowl filled with colorful satin-finish ornaments. In the dining room, the table was set for New Year’s Eve dinner, featuring a centerpiece of peppermint-swirled glass chimneys with beaded garland and glass ornaments.

Wooden snowmen, nutcrackers, trees and candy canes by contemporary woodcarver Marlene Dusbiber of Chelsea, Michigan sit on a silver tray in the main hall, while a tray of ornamental snowmen and Santa candles keep watch nearby.

To fully outfit the main rooms of the inn takes Michael and Jeffri a week, and while labor-intensive, it’s a joyful experience for these world travelers turned innkeepers.