The Christmas Table

It’s Christmastime at the table and I have used a garden Christmas theme this year. The black, white, red and green compliment my room.
This year I added beautiful read and green April Cornell napkins that I bought at one of my favorite shops in Fredericksburg..A Place in Time.
This bowl was found in Ross’s and seemed to match the theme.

Other little new touches .. this glittery white Santa holding a cardinal.

And this shiny green bird who found a home in the cage.
But my favorite of all is the alert rabbit which I love.
What fun it is to decorate!

I missed you

One of my favorite sayings is “Computers are wonderful things..when they work.” Unfortunately Verizon had quite a problem this week and my computer was out from Tuesday until today when I spent over a half an hour with a tech support person who ran me through getting back online. It’s nice to be back. 
   This has been a rather quiet week. Yesterday I went to a Kinzua Kuties (my former Red hat group) party at the Pennhills club. It’s always nice out there and the food was delicious. Today I have Literary Club where we will hear a talk on Christmas sweaters.
  I’m gearing up to make Christmas cookies next week to take with me to my son’s house. I’m cutting down on the amount of cookies I’m making this year. It seems they don’t all get eaten each year. I’ll also make a Swedish Tea Ring which has become a tradition on Christmas morning. I’m almost finished with my shopping, just a few more things to buy.
This vintage Santa is from our childhood.

Linda’s home

Linda’s house was decked out for the holidays.
Her baker’s rack was done in white and silver with icicle lights. My special favorite is her French tree with all the Francophile ornaments.
The baker’s rack in the kitchen was dressed up with silver framed black and white photos of us as children and our mother and father.
  The mantle was done with silver deer and lights.

Linda made the Santa boots.

Branches

It’s funny how you can be influenced by the things that you see. I’ve been seeing branches with tags on them for quite a while on the web used in different ways. When I came across some cute Christmas tags at my favorite florist Jan William’s I immediately knew I wanted to hang them on my branches in the metal vase.
The images were so old fashioned they cried out to me to bring them home.
Some of the branches are wired with white lights. I’ll put up a picture of them lit up later on.

Getting out of Dodge

There are many, many reasons why I love to travel and get away from my hometown..great food, new visions, beautiful things, feasting my eyes, great company and fresh alive feelings. It is so much fun to see new things. And of course copy them when I get home in a different way.
One of my favorite stops in Fredericksburg is the World Market where goods from all over the world are for sale. I can always find a treasure or an unusual food there and at Christmastime there are so many delights. This year I found some Eiffel Tower and Arch de Triumph ornaments. I knew exactly what I would do with them when I got home..make a little tree for on my French table. (It helped that I had bought a table runner with French writing on it at Hobby Lobby).
I needed a vase and found this faux mercury glass one at Marshall’s. It held the branches I cut from a bush in my yard perfectly. It has found a home temporarily on my bathroom window sill.

The mercury glass birds were found at Target.

It fits in perfectly in my Frency bathroom.

Fredericksburg 2011

Every year my sisters and I have a tradition of meeting in Fredericksburg and going on the tour of homes in December. This year we had a special treat. On Friday night we attended a dinner theater production of White Christmas.   After a nice meal we had a short singalong and then the musical started. It was just as good as the movie with an excellent cast, production numbers, and wonderful every changing sets.
Me, Diane and Linda at the theater.

Lewiston Home Tour 2011

One of my very favorite things to do is go on a home tour. I love seeing other people’s homes and how they decorate. In Lewiston, NY they have two a year..a kitchen tour in the summer and a Christmas tour. My friend Linda and I made the two hour trek to Lewiston which is above Niagara Falls yesterday. There were five houses on the tour, but the first one spoiled me for the rest. It was right in town and very small, but decorated by a professional and had so much charm.
I could tell by the outside that this was going to be one of my favorite. I loved the ornamental cabbage adding so much color. The landscaping had that attention to detail that I love. Notice back in the corner the plant stand with fresh greens. The front was so welcoming. I loved these urns filled with fresh greens, silver balls, mesh silver ribbons and silver painted twigs.
The windowboxes and over the door also sported greenery.
We were not permitted to take pictures inside but kindly the owner took my camera in and took pictures for me!
This was the living room. The pictures can never do justice to how pretty this was in person. On the mantle were moss balls and silver ornaments. Here was her tree.

We talked to this designer about where he found that wonderful wide mesh silver ribbon (Hobby Lobby or ACMoore.)

The tablescape was beautiful. It’s hard to see but behind the bench was a wall of silver twigs.
The outside was as pretty as the inside with a lot of things to look at.

This was a great start to our tour.