A LITTLE GARDEN THEMED CHRISTMAS

Welcome to my Tablescape Thursday decorations. Thanks again to Susan from Between Naps on the Porch who makes this all possible every single week. If you would like to see more, stop over to her blog and surf around to enjoy beautiful holiday tables.
   My table idea began when I saw the garden themed table set up at Pottery Barn in the Galleria Mall in Buffalo. There were glass hurricanes, white candles, and white flowers that intrigued me. I tried to duplicate some of the ideas in my sunroom this year.
 
I used paper whites and amaryllis  along with a glass block light decoration that I made this year.


The table is dressed in black, white, red and green.

The centerpiece is this candle holder from colonial Candles that I first saw on Susan’s table. Inside is one of those newer battery operated candles. This one has a timer. Once you set it to go on at seven o’clock, it comes on every night after that and burns for a few hours then goes off. Then on again the next night. It was a gift from my sister and I love to see it lit up every night all by itself.

I found this idea as I was surfing last week and knew I had to copy it for my candlier. I think the pears hanging give it a garden feeling.

Again this year I put crystal wreaths on the backs of the chairs.

Theses are the place holders that I made. I see that I need to cover the backs too…whoops!
 
This is the view looking out the french doors from the sunroom. You can see that we got snow last night. It has been such fair weather that we didn’t even put away our porch swing yet. Must get that done.

The baker’s rack has a garden feel too.  I made the ornament of my mom and dad smooching under the mistletoe. It’s one of my favorites.
Top gun is enjoying Christmas too!


  
I hope you enjoyed your tour. Happy holidays to all!

IT’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas

 
The decorations are up and our late arriving snow appeared overnight to herald the approach of Christmas. At this time of year it is good to make lists..not the same lists the children make to let Santa know what they are dreaming of..but the to-do lists so nothing gets forgotten during this busy season. This year we are staying home for Christmas since the family was all together for Thanksgiving. I welcome the time to kick back and enjoy the season without a sense of rush. It’s a time to enjoy friends and family. Do you have a favorite Christmas memory? I think the year Don put together a tin dollhouse for my little sisters when we were just dating is one of mine. Don was my high school sweetheart and we met when I was a sophomore at Bradford High. We dated and even when he went into the Navy after high school we still remained together. Then I went off to college and we still stayed together through all that separation. In January we will celebrate our 44th year of marriage, but we have actually been together for over fifty years. I can’t imagine a Christmas without him. There are so many memories of Christmas eves when we stayed up late after the boys went to bed and Don put together games and put out toys and trucks. As the years have passed and the children grew our Christmas celebration has grown smaller. Many times now it is just the two of us ushering in the day alone. But the season is still as sweet.

WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO GET ORGANIZED?

Oh, how I admire all those layouts in magazines where the woman has everything in it’s proper place and knows where everything is at a moment’s notice. That would not be me! I have struggled ( and I do mean struggled) every year with the best of intentions to finally get myself organized. I’m not horrible disorganized..I do make an attempt to keep things together and keep a neat house. But each year I realize that I have w-a-y more than I need. I think it started out with buying in quantities when the boys were young, I was working a full time job, and didn’t have time to shop so I just bought several of each item to save time. That habit expanded into having too much stuff. Abundance is good sometimes, but when you seem to have too much it’s time to trim down. I’ve been working at it for quite awhile, but never seem to achieve that goal of knowing what I have and where it is.
  So this Christmas I decided that once and for all I was going to sort through all those bins of Christmas decorations in the attic. There certainly were things there that I never use anymore. So Don carried downstairs 5 large bins. I worked all one day putting like items together…how does anyone get 15 red velvet bows?  And the greenery. Yes, maybe once I used it all but now I am of the philosophy that I just make more work for myself by putting up so much. So out went all the extra strings of lights..we haven’t used colored lights for years. And all those country decorations which fit my style once upon a time but not my style today.  I can’t say I was perfect. I did keep more than I’m actually using this year. But I made a darn good start! Do I get a gold star for that?

thanksgiving at Chris’

What a surprise! Dan worked at Sheetz all week and one night he brought us all home lottery tickets. I was the only winner. On a $2 ticket I won $2.


 

Alex and Scott in the kitchen. Alex is an excellent cook and we ate well during our stay. She went all out for Thanksgiving!




Alex fooling around with Don. While we were there Don made a huge pot of chili.


Sean and his baby blues.The table is set for the feast.

Jenny with her new laptop and Alex chatting on the phone.

Family, does it get any better than this?

As I sit here at Alex's computer I am thinking just how lucky I am. The Thanksgiving holiday makes us even more aware of how important it is to be with your family and feel the love that it creates during a holiday. This week at Chris' has been so nice for Don and I. There used to be times when the family would gather at our house to celebrate but now with the family scattered it is easier for us to come here. We have had a great week. Chris took us to the Trans Siberian Orchestra concert last Sunday evening and we enjoyed the music and special effects and kicked off the holiday season in a super way. When Ryan and his family came on Wednesday it made our time here even more special when I could spend time with my youngest grandson, Sean. We had a feast on Thursday and have been shopping and hanging out. Tomorrow we will leave for home and back to our routine. How blessed we are!

TRANS SIBERIAN ORCHESTRA

 I am so excited about this weekend. We are going to Hershey to see TSO. They put on a fantastic show and will be debuting their new album as well as performing older songs. I know I’m jumping the gun by putting up the Christmas background on my blog, but I will be gone all next week and wanted to get it up before I left.

WINTER PREPARATIONS

Look, the Christmas lights are up and there isn’t even snow on the ground. Don took advantage of the nicer weather to put the icicle lights up.



 
Beside the bird feeder is a butterfly bush. Each year it needs to be cut down and grows back in the summer.

I dug my rosemary up this year and planted it in a pot with a trellis. I don’t know if it will winter over inside or not. WE’ll see.

We’re headed for Florida

 
The coffee girls are on the  move. In February we will be taking a winter vacation in sunny Florida. We will fly from Buffalo straight to orlando and rent a three bedroom town house for the week. There are two goals: to get out of the Bradford winter and to relax and have a fab time. We haven’t planned out what we want to do yet but a trip to the Gulf coast is an idea we all like. There are a lot of things to do in the area and we think there will be girls we know down there at that time that we might hook up with. This will give us something to dream about in the next few months.

Do you have a dream?

  This is about as opposite as I can get from today in Bradford. We are approaching winter and this is a lovely picture in France overlooking the Seine River. I was just in the mood for dreaming. We all need dreams, don’t we? What are yours? Do you have something you’ve always wanted to do but it’s on the back burner? IS there somewhere you’d like to go? Everyone needs to have an aspiration, a goal, a dream. Why do you think it hasn’t come true? Are there barriers standing in your way? I urge you to break them down and make a step toward that dream. I’m dreaming of going to France again. I’ve been there twice and have memories that warm my heart. I put it out to the universe for us to reach our dreams.

A FRENCH DINNER FOR ONE

A little project for today…
 
A shopping trip to Buffalo and a trip to Michael’s craft store were the inspirations for today’s craft project…place cards for my table.

I made photo place cards using square wooden frames, striped fabric left over from my sister’s curtains, and some decanter markers I found at Michael’s.

I set the table using a gold tray and and some checked black fabric as a base. My dollar store (but looks  like a million dollar) plates, black matte salad plate, and ivory and gold silverware and Irish crystal glasses complete the look. The fleur de lis napkin ring was enhanced with a black checked bow. 
 
Ooh, la, la… a dinner for one in front of the fireplace.