Bloom Stays is feeling festive

Here it is: our slice of Christmas served hot off the press and the edit machine this week. Our first-ever mini-Christmas film, no less, starring the Bloom Stays team. “Why did we need to do this?” We hear you say over your mid-morning mince pie. “And how?”

 

Christmas is always special for Bloom Stays, for our guests and our owners.

We’re right there with decorations going up in our houses, logs stacked by the fires, well-equipped kitchens to make sure you can’t trip up on the turkey (figuratively, not literally) and swept chimneys to make sure Santa can enter soot-free. But we wanted to show how our houses make our guests feel at Christmas when they’re filled with your friends and family. How choosing to spend Christmas in a holiday home with your nearest and dearest can help make things just a bit merrier.

To capture the delights of playing pool, unwrapping presents and movie nights with popcorn, we had to enlist our favourite crack team of creatives to bring it to life. For weeks before the big day at our Bloom Stays location house Dormestone Farm, the Bloom Stays team sweated to carve out a story plan, props, and colours that were going to strike the right note (check out our behind-the-scenes video here.) Our photographer Georgia Glynn Smith, and her dog (take a bow Mr Blue); filmmaker Matthew Robinson (making his debut with the Bloom Stays team); food stylist Charlotte Butterworth (aka Needy Greedy) who has appeared many times on the Bloom ‘gram; and finally Sarah Coleman from Beyond The Table, our super stylist, tablescaper and, it turns out, a beautiful and poised model amongst her many talents.

With that team in place, the Bloom Stays’ in-house gang stepped in to bring their many and varied talents to Matt and Georgia’s small and stills screens. 

A decorated table for Christmas and a 'Santa has been' message on a plate
Christmas day at Dormestone Farm, a Bloom Stays holiday home in Kent, where kids are unwrapping presents in front of the fire with a decorate Christmas tree and a dog beside them.
A group of people around a table enjoying a Christmas dinner and drinking wine

Presents wrapped by our latest (day job — Bloom Stays bookings) recruit, Esperanza, were an (empty) joy (sorry kids -that’s show biz); Michael, our head bookings honcho, looked every inch the film star playing pool and handing children (not so fake) presents. Bella, Luca, and Emma V (who looks after Bloom Stays owners when she’s not posing) were a picture-perfect family poised on the sofas alongside Amber, Noah, and Mila whose mum, Emma M, is Bloom Stays’ managed properties leader-in-chief. We persuaded Mr Blue to casually strut between shots, lolling on various sofas and looking keen to take part with many, many treats. Sarah – our super stylist – tweaked Christmas trees, candles, napkins, front doors and of course, tables, to bring the warm colours and twinkly lights of the season to life on camera.

Other arduous jobs included lighting the Christmas pud with any available alcohol we could find and avoiding the temptation to nibble the (somewhat tweaked) turkey. We also found ourselves repeating a hearty ‘cheers’ again and again (anyone in Equity has nothing to worry about) and late into the evening (whilst the ninth pizza was being served) Matt was outside in the dark shooting lights on (and lights off).

OK, so BAFTA may not be troubled by our efforts, but we’re pretty proud of it.

Click here to ROLL VT.

Bloom Stays Christmas Film

The shoot also served a second purpose…

To provide Inside Kent magazine with their front cove, festive image for December’s issue.

Shot by Georgia (and starring Mr Blue, again), the ancient farmhouse’s front door has been magnificently adorned with a wreath by Kent’s Astilbe & Sorrell florist, the focus of this beautiful festive shot. Inside Kent has reviewed Dormestone Farm revealing what it’s like to stay in this beautiful farmhouse which overlooks the Kent Downs at Charing just in case you’d like to take your family there in 2025. With a pool, hot tub, games, and cinema room, there’s a lot to like there. Even more so at Christmas when the tree is up and the decorations bring that festive sparkle.  

 

The whole piece was an epic event for us as a team, but one of which we’re more than proud of this Christmas. Bloom Stays’ houses are special all year round; hopefully this film will persuade more families to re-route Santa and hire a house for the holidays.

Bloom Stays Christmas Wreath on the front door of Dormestone Farm.
The front cover of InsideKent's December Issue, featuring a dog sat infront of Dormestone Farm, a holiday home by Bloom Stays
Bloom Stays Christmas wreath and a dog sat infront of Dormestone Farm, a holiday home by Bloom Stays