The Real Reason Rachael Ray Got So Emotional While Sharing Her Christmas Decorations
In Rachael Ray's new video sharing the Ray house's Christmas decorations, she walks viewers though the concept sketches, the execution, and the final product — all of which you can watch on YouTube. You get to see her garlands, her countless strands of lights, her paper falling snowflake lanterns, and so much more.
This year though, you may have noticed, Ray's video is way more emotional than you'd expect from a classic Rachael Ray Christmas decorations tour. The reason? As she explains at the start of the video, "This year we're not putting up trees, because no families are coming to visit, and you know, we lost our main home — our big house."
When she talks about losing her home, she's referring to the fire that burned down her and her husband John Cusimano's upstate New York home in August. As she explained on her show's season premiere in September (via USA Today), "On August 9th, my house burned. Fifteen years of memories; 40 years of notebooks, drawings, thoughts, my life's work. It took about one hour for this house to come down — and in my mind it took decades before it was even built. In the years that I lived here, I learned an awful lot. In the few weeks since it burned, I think I've learned even more."
Rachael Ray remains grateful in the face of adversity
Despite what Ray and Cusimano went through, she remains grateful and positive: "I gotta tell you, I don't know where I'd be without friends and a community and people so dear to me to help me bring Christmas to life even when you're not at home," she shares in the video. "So from this [pointing to her rough concept doodles] to that [pointing to the gorgeous completed decorations], happy holidays everybody."
Still, she's feeling the loss. We can hear it in her voice and in her words. As she says at the end of the tour, "It honestly makes me want to burst into tears how much I miss our trees...it's not a lot but these partridges and pears and sugared fruits and things, they do make me feel at home and nostalgic and grateful for the family that I have and the life I've led, and I love that you guys are part of it. Thank you for sharing the holidays with us."