Year-round, the Davidson Wildcats team colors of red and black are mainstays around Davidson. But at Christmastime, it’s no surprise that the Davidson College President’s House is transformed by red and green.

“I just like traditional colors at Christmas,” says Susan Ross, wife of Davidson President Thomas W. Ross, inaugurated last year after moving from his previous post as executive director of the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation in Winston-Salem.

They moved into a home that’s been a distinctive part of the Davidson campus for more than 170 years. Susan Ross enjoys reading histories of the house, built in 1837 and reworked several times since. One president, she quotes one source, found an earlier version “not commodious,” and raised his family elsewhere.

Panes of wavy glass flank the front door of the white-columned home at 408 N. Main St. Ross hangs a simple wreath on the door. And she solved the problem of not enough electric outlets in the historic house to power the candles in each front window: “I bought cordless.”

Inside, the red of candles, poinsettias and decorative balls suspended in glass cylinders is joined by fresh greenery from the Davidson campus. The campus is a nationally registered arboretum and offers visitors a map and a self-guided tour of 40 significant trees and shrubs. “For every tree they cut, they plant three more in its place,” Ross says.

Greenery that she and designer Pat McCall of The Blossom Shop enjoy using includes magnolia leaves from a tree in her backyard. “It’s one of my favorites, and I always use it at Christmas,” she says. She uses the leaves to flank candles and balls, and to surround a Williamsburg Apple Tree that she’s made of apples, boxwood and pineapple throughout the 36 years she’s been married. She keeps an eye out for signs of dryness, and replaces the leaves when they start to die.

Decorations, she says, “need to be durable because they usually are put up the first weekend in December. You want it to at least look fresh through Christmas.”

The house is both family home and the setting for many social occasions. The couple frequently hosts dinners before lectures, as well as events for students, faculty and trustees. During the holidays, Ross likes the decorations to reflect the family’s personal tastes and to recall their Christmases together.

On the long formal dining table, the family uses crystal and Christmas china they have collected over the years. Nutcracker soldiers lining up across a mantel were gifts to their son, Thomas W. (Tommy) Ross Jr., from her parents, the late Margaret and Bob Donaldson. “They would add to it every year until we said, ‘That’s enough,’” Ross remembers. Tommy has no mantel now, she says; he lives in a condo in Washington, D.C. So, “We’ll enjoy those as long as we can.”

Two of the needlepoint stockings they hang from the mantel were made for the Ross children by Thomas Ross’s grandmother. Labeled “Mary Kathryn” and “Tommy,” they’ll be enjoyed by the grown Ross children, Mary Kathryn Elkins of Charlotte and Thomas Jr., when they visit during the holidays.

“For us, Christmas has always been very traditional,” Ross says – and very personal too.

Adds Ross: “It can seem like a museum unless you bring some life into it.”