Christmas Tables

Hello everyone,

    First, a New Year's wish for you from a photo I took at our kitchen table last week.Isn't it hard to believe another year is almost over?  If life is a journey will someone put on the brakes!!! It is definitely true the older you get the faster time flies. Anyway, I am enjoying the journey and I am very thankful for all of our blessings.

Now, I thought some of you might have wondered how we could fit our large family into our kitchen and dining/library. So I took some photos to share with you today.. 

Many of you have also seen these rooms many times before but with a few changes we are able to bring our long folding tables,take up some mismatched chairs,put on some tablecloths and set our tables with my red and white transfersware china.

It is definitely not the fanciest table setting in blogland but I kept in mind that we have no dishwasher and so simple would  work best for us- there were 23 of us to enjoy our family turkey dinner.

 We set up the tables on Christmas Eve Day, which of course saved a lot of time on Christmas Day. We sit down to eat around 1:00 p.m. as some of our family have evening commitments.

I use a mix of red and white dishes.

I love the candle chandelier -very inexpensive but cozy!

Lila, our youngest granddaughter had her own little chair right by the tree. Lila is enjoying my homemade cheese bread- a family favorite.

Now, this is our kitchen before we took out the smaller table but this is how it looked before.

 I thought my husband had earned a little quiet time by the fireside by evening. 

.
Thank you to all who have visited me today and though out the last few years I have been blogging- I hope you  know it wouldn't be any fun without all of you!!!

I hope the New Year will bring you health, joy, peace and love and may you all have time to enjoy your blessings each and every day.
I am joining Susan again for Tablescape Thursday at Between Naps on the Porch. Thank you Susan for hosting once again.

Love & Blessings to all of you,

Carolyn

Bathroom Storage

Extra baskets, wall cabinets, and recessed wall cubbies make smaller bathrooms feel a bit bigger !

Christmas at Home

 Hello everyone,
      I hope you all had a joyful Christmas and maybe now some time to relax and enjoy family and friends. We enjoyed having all our family here at our home for our traditional big turkey dinner and seeing the excitement of the 'little ones'.
  The photos above and below is our granddaughter Jessie who is 5 years old.

We are blessed with a few of these little angels who come to visit. Last week it was a different angel wearing these wings.

 Snow!  Well, we didn't really have a white Christmas this year but we did get a dusting of snow by Cristmas evening. However,since then we have had quite a good covering of the fine white stuff! Today was windy and stormy most of the day so it was a cozy day indoors.

Our little garden cottage nestled in the snow.

Christmas night at our house.

Winter has arrived!

Thank you for popping by today and also a big thank you to all who left good wishes to us over the past week.

Enjoy the rest of the holiday season,

Carolyn

Merry Christmas !!!!

Christmas Blessings to All !

Hello everyone,

  I know you are all very busy with all the joys of the season so I am just giving you a quick tour around today. the photos above are of our bath with a few Christmas touches.

This is our family room(photos taken last year but much the same as this year).

Our little garden cottage decked out for Christmas.

Our upstairs sun room of the master bedroom and bath. I love the touches of greenery in it.

Our kitchen before the tree went in the bay window.

our tree

our library-taken from the stairs

library taken from the kitchen/dining room

our bedroom

my bedside table

our veranda back a few weeks ago when we actually had snow- still raining here but snow flurries at least for tomorrow so they say!

guest bedroom

fireplace in  library

Once again I would like to wish you all  Christmas blessings and some quiet time to reflect on the wonderful gift we were given on that first Christmas morning!

I am joining Cindy at My Romantic Home for Show & Tell Friday.

Wishing you and yours all the joy of the season!

Carolyn

Use ALL of Your Space !

Look at every inch of your space. You never know what you can do in a small area !!

A Christmas Tea

Hello everyone!

   We are having a wet and very windy day here as a northeaster is stalled over us for a few days. If the temp was a little colder , we would be loaded with snow but alas not a flake of the white stuff! Well, as we always say here at least we don't have to shovel it !

Since it is a wild and wooly day her I enjoyed spending some time in the kitchen ,making a pot of carrot soup and scones-comfort food. I also made these apple cranberry strudel muffins to enjoy with a good cup of tea.

This is one of my favorite teacups- a gift from my sweet husband.

The teapot is an old one that I bought in an antique shop in Maine on one of our little trips across the border.

Go ahead pour yourself a nice cup of tea and grab a muffin or two as well.

The snowy picture below came from Helene Flont today in my emails.  It put a smile on my face as it may be the only snow I will see this Christmas although some flurries are predicted for Christmas Eve so I am hopeful still. Thank you Helene, I love that you took the time to send this to me! Helene is a lovely artist and you can see her beautiful blogs here.

 Well, I hope you enjoyed a little break in your busy day. I still have a few presents to buy so I better hit the mall tomorrow. I know you probably have yours all wrapped and ready to go but I can be a procrastinator sometimes- I hope you haven't noticed that!!!
  With all this wind I wouldn't be surprised if we lost power for awhile- a tree came down in our garden just missing our power line- phew!

Thank you so joining me for a little Christmas tea today.

I am joining Sandi again for Tea Time Tuesday at Rose Chintz Cottage where she hosts a lovely tea.

Carolyn

Almost here.....

Are YOU ready? :)