Christmiscellany

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday.  

The cats were surprised by little gifts left in the tree by Santa.  Three little mice were more exciting when wrapped and tied with twine than they were once they were open.

And speaking of surprises, look what I found in my mailbox on Christmas Eve:  a personalized pillow cover made by Deb (from the Loyalist Cottage) and her husband just because I make them laugh.  Isn't that sweet?  I love it and it's just perfect in my living room.

Deb sells her handmade and hand printed pillow covers on etsy and was recently discovered by HGTV magazine who will be showing one of her alphabet pillows.  If you want one, you should order now before she goes viral.

The Christmas table.  I covered the table with a vintage linen laundry sack, totally unironed, so it's more casual.  I wished I had a few green plates to pick up on the natural theme with the skinny tree and paperwhites as a centerpiece.  Mix and match every day plates were used with my hodgepodge of  brown transferware.

I saw my transferware on Pinterest with someone seemingly desperate to know the name of the pattern so I thought I would show the different patterns I have and list the makers and names in case anyone is interested.

This is one of my favorites.  The most masculine of transferware if masculine could be applied to any transferware.  This is J&G Meakin and I believe the pattern is called Romantic England.  It says it's dishwasher safe so it can't be too old.

This one is Johnson Brothers, WindsorWare in the Dover pattern.

These plates were my grandmother's and it's another one of my favorites.  It's Mason's ironstone in the Bow Bells pattern.  It has an aesthethic movement feel and not too flowery.

I can't remember where I picked this one piece up but I really like the swirling scalloped edge.  This is manufactured by Clarice Cliff of Royal Staffordshire and the pattern is called Charlotte.

The back is almost as beautiful as the front.

The "Other Tree" in the dining room is now only a memory.  My research on living trees said the tree should only be in the house for 7 to 10 days.  The weather today and tomorrow are supposed to be quite mild so it seemed the perfect time to get it conditioned to the outdoors again, to give a good watering and  to get it planted before cold and snowy weather sets in.  I dug a hole a few weeks ago before the ground froze so it's ready to be planted.  It was feeling very dry so I hope it's okay.

The Boston fern still looks pretty good after being cut about nine days ago.

I got a lot of comments about the garland so I thought I would so a few closeup images.  I bought this at a garden center but I think it would be a fairly easy DIY project.  This one is two different kinds of pinecones, walnuts and sweet gum pods.

And the other one is slightly different using wood chips and little bundles of grapevine in lieu of walnuts.

I've had these for four years so it seems they would last at least several years.

I don't know about you but I'm beat.  I'm happy this is a short week and New Year's is much easier holiday in terms of preparation; in fact, I hope to spend a lot of time in PJs, watching movies, and planning for new year's projects.