My Family Christmas Recipe

We had a great family Christmas at the Knox house!  ALL the kids were here. It was noisy and chaotic with much fun and laughter. Our recipe: lots of presents under the tree (any amount of presents will do),  add two grown sons & their beautiful wives, slowly stir in 5 grandchildren, (3 under 19 mo.), pour in three dogs (that are jealous of each other and the kids), top it off with two very proud grandparents (me and Bob) and two G.G's (great-grandparents - my mom and dad).  Then just chill and enjoy!  


The chill part is essential or nerves could get frazzled.  My oldest son and family went home yesterday and the other son and family from Spokane are still here.  That includes a 4 month old and a 19 month old.  Obviously there is no time yet for me to rest, but I'm enjoying every second with these babies.  They are sooooo cute!  My son has to fly back to Spokane on Saturday and then is spending a few weeks in Alaska for his job so his wife and kids are staying here until the end of January.   Today my two sons and families are spending the day together at oldest son's home, so I'm getting some much needed cleaning and laundry caught up.  


Last night, hubby and I babysat the two little ones while Brandon and Diana went on a dinner and a movie date.  Oh my - how did I ever do this 28 years ago?  I was 28 years younger, that's how!  It does make a difference.  But Brandon and Diana never get much time together without the kids so I wanted them to go out and enjoy.


We have some great pictures taken by my son, Austin, the photographer.  I'm just too busy and tired to download and post right now.  I'll definitely show them soon because they are just too adorable to not share!


It's 5:00 p.m. and for probably the first time in two weeks I am alone, so I'm going to take a hot bath with a glass of wine!

Christmas Dinner

As Christmas gets a little closer, I'm starting to think about my menu for Christmas dinner.  What should I serve?  How should I best set the table and serve 13 people, including five small children?  Should I try to accomodate everyone in a more formal sit down style?  Would it be better and easier to serve more of an Open House buffet style?  I'm leaning toward the buffet style and I know the menu will include ham and scalloped potatoes.  The details from there aren't quite clear yet.  Whatever I decide, my dining room will play the leading role.  The dining room is decorated and ready for the big day!

I use a lot of gold and crystal or glass in my dining room decorations.  I have several crystal Lennox coin pieces that were passed down from my Grandma, and that sort of sets the stage for everything else.
I layer crystal cake plates and then cover them with white and gold poinsettas.  The little tree is decorated with blown glass ornaments, gold boots, gold and white poinsettas and gold ribbon.

In front of the little tree is a miniature glass nativity scene.

The center table cloth is from Vienna, Austria, and given to me from my mother.  The candles are clear with gold flecks (for looks only).

I have a few Christmas plates that I put in the bottom of my china cupboard.  Sitting on top is my antique chocolate set that I found at the flea market this past summer.  I have yet to use it and now that I reminded myself of it, I need to do so.  Hot chocolate with marshmallows while sitting in front of the fire!

Sitting atop my wine cabinet is my Thomas Kincaid Christmas village.  

I made the quilt that hangs next to the wine cabinet.  It's a fan pattern, made from a wine theme fabric.  I hand appliqued each fan to the quilt and fussy cut each blade of the fan so that each blade was the same pattern. Here's a close up of what I'm trying to explain.  

 This is probably one of my favorite quilts that I've ever done.  

I have a bench that sits in front of the bay window.  The dogs love to sit on this bench and look out the window, waiting to bark at anyone or anything they see.  Or if I leave the house, they will sit there patiently and faithfully waiting for my return.  

I need to find a gold Christmas pillow in place of the floral one.  I didn't think about that until I looked at this picture! 

I'm also linking this post to Cielo's "Show Off Your Cottage Monday"
http://houseinroses.blogspot.com/2010/12/show-off-your-cottage-monday.html

Winter Wonderland

This is what I woke up to this morning!

This is at 7:00 a.m. and the sun was just coming up over the lake.  I'm standing at my back door.  I couldn't walk out any further because the snow was too deep and I only had my slippers on.
I was up at 7 because my little Fergie

as cute as he is, had just peed on my bedroom floor, which, by the way, is newly carpeted.  He's three years old, but just never potty trained well at all.  I was so mad at him and practically threw him out the front door and then saw the fresh, new, virgin snow that fell during the night.  It was still sort of dark out and with the sun coming up it was just so pretty.  Luckily for Fergie, my mood changed from mad to happy and content.
We already had about 7 inches on the ground, and now with the new layer it's up to about a foot.
I'm so glad I got my groceries yesterday and almost finished my Christmas shopping.  It was so cold yesterday, and I didn't get home until 5:00 in the dark and I wasn't looking forward to carrying all those bags in the house.  Well, I was pleasantly surprised by Hubby at the door ready to carry in all the bags.  As I walked in the front door, I saw that he had a blazing fire in the fireplace and all the Christmas lights on!  Oohh, that felt so good to my body and my soul.
This is what Christmas should look and feel like!  I wish I could wrap this up and give it as a present to all that don't get to experience Christmas and the Holidays like this.  I really do appreciate it and try not to take it for granted!

Heart of the Home at Christmas

The Heart of the Home is always the kitchen.  This is especially true at Christmas time.  I'm in this room it seems like all day.  I've purposely set it up that way.  I get a lot done because I have everything at my fingertips in one room.

 My kitchen is large, but it is very warm and cozy at the same time. The cherry cabinets and the wood floor helps to give it that feel.   I'm definitely not a minimalist when it comes to my home and decorating.  I love to have all my "stuff" around me. There's my little TV on the left side of the counter.  As Hubby says, I'm a TV person.  Most of the time it's just background noise while I'm working.  Sometimes I will turn it onto a Christmas music station. 

 Every once in a while I force myself to get rid of some things or at least put some in storage or I can get a cluttered look going on.

I like to have little lamps next to my work areas, rather than turning on the big overhead lights.  It just feels more homey that way. 

Notice my "Grandma" sign.  My DIL gave that to me after her grandmother passed away a few years ago.  This had hung in her house and my DIL always liked it and wanted me to have it now.  It reads:  "Grandma's Babysitting Service

Little people always welcome.  Service includes: meals, lessons, entertainment and lots of hugs.

Tender loving care for your most precious possessions."

It fits!

This is the other end of my kitchen.  It's an eating area/breakfast nook/my office.  

Little Fergie and Ellie Mae hang out with me here.

My antique desk houses my computer and all my office supplies.  I also have a small file cabinet that also is my printer stand. I'm my husband's assistant, blog writer, and Etsy shop manager right from this little corner. It can get rather messy, but I try to clean and straighten it all up by 5:00, shut down the computer and close the desk.  Then it's back to full time kitchen and time to prepare dinner.

I don't have a lot of Christmas decorations in the kitchen, but there are a few.  I have to always have the mistletoe in the doorway and my Christmas card rack.

So now when you read my blog, you can picture in your mind where I'm sitting and downloading pictures and typing, while Christmas music plays in the background and my dogs lay in their beds next to me.  

Thanks for stopping by!

I'm linking up to Cielo's party.

Show Off Your Cottage Monday

A Beautiful Winter Day

Today is a beautiful, snowy and wintry day.  I love days like this when I can be inside where it's warm and comfy and look out the window at the snow coming down.

I do not like to drive in this weather, so I don't if I don't have to. 

Here's another tree I put up on my front stoop.

I decorate it with a grape and wine theme.  My house has a European/Tuscan/grape/wine decor so I like to continue the decor out to the front porch.  I put the tree outside in the Fall, but now just added the bow and some more Christmasy decorations.

I just finished and listed this little mini quilt for sale on my Etsy shop.

It's hand appliqued and hand quilted and then framed in a 5x7 table top frame.  It looks good sitting on a table, like I've done with my entrance table.

Speaking of Etsy - I made another sale yesterday.  I get so excited when an e-mail comes through that says "Congratulations, you've made an Etsy sale". It's not about the little bit of money, but more about the thrill that someone found my site and liked something I made.  My cute little Geisha pincushion sold.

  

This is re-purposed from an antique Japanese vase.

Right now I'm working on knitting and sewing some Christmas presents.  I'll show pictures after Christmas so I don't give anything away.

Well, back to my Elf Workshop.  Since Hubby is out of the office for the day, I have a nice and peaceful day home alone.  It's a good winter day!