Holiday Mamasita: December 2011

Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Christmas Eve Dinner and Red Transferware: 2 of my favorite things

Most of us would probably agree...Christmas Eve is the best day of the year. There is a kind of softness about the day, with people smiling at each other, patiently obliged to let others go first, whether it be at a stop sign or in line at a store, with a feeling of goodwill toward man, prevailing. What a happy time it is for children and adults alike, with all the promise of Christmas morning shining in the near future, the anticipation making everything sweeter.

~Lizzie, my little Christmas Angel~

Usually, Christmas Eve morning is spent wrapping the last of the presents, making one last trip to the store for some needed or forgotten gift and/or ingredient and tidying up the house to set the stage for the rest of the day and the next. There is an electricity in the air as we bustle about making everything ready. Some people pack up the car and head off to a friend or relatives house for dinner. Some of my happiest memories, as a child, were going to Nana and Papa's house on Christmas Eve. My mom would help us to get into our holiday finest, with us kids asking every 10 or 15 minutes if it was time to go yet. Doesn't Christmas Eve seem like the longest day of the year? A hold-over from childhood and all the waiting. We would head over in the late afternoon, greeted at the door by our precious grandparents, Papa in his red wool sweater and square-toed boots, smelling of English Leather cologne and Nana in her Christmas apron, Santa hat and festive blouse adorned with her bejeweled Christmas tree pin, smelling of Este Lauder's Youth Dew. Their house was warm and cozy with a fire crackling in the fireplace, the smell of roast cooking adding to the overall good feeling, the small, lead-tinsel strewn tree placed on top of a little table, and of course, Johnny Mathis singing lovely Christmas Carols in the background. The excitement was palpable. Oh, to feel that feeling again!

With my kids, ourChristmas Eve traditions have been different over the years, sometimes taking a 3 1/2 hour drive, each way, to my sister, Melinda's house so we could be with family on this sacred day, but in the last few years we have kept Christmas Eve with just our immediate family. We set a beautiful table in the formal dining room with my favorite red transferware dishes. This year we had standing rib roast, grilled onions, twice baked potatoes and green bean casserole. I planned on making Yorkshire Pudding, but the new salt rub I used on the rib roast prevented drippings from accumulating and we were all too hungry to wait the extra 20 minutes we would have to wait to make it after the roast was done. So we skipped it. We all agreed the roast was the best one ever and we ate every one of the twice-baked potatoes, eating more, even when we were so stuffed we were groaning!

After dinner, all of us girls sat at the table, letting our meals settle, while my dear husband, Dave, cleared the table, washed the dishes and brought us coffee. When Dave finished, everyone opened their one gift, pj's, put them on and headed to the family room to watch both Disney's Very Merry Christmas sing-a-long and then our beloved favorite, It's A Wonderful Life. The kids finally headed up to bed at about 12:30 AM, with visions of sugar plums dancing in their heads. It was the end of a perfect day, with the best still to come.

I started collecting red transferware about 15 years ago.
I think I was originally attracted to it because it reminded me
of the toile fabric I love so much. I would look through every dish in the antique and thrift stores I haunt, picking up a piece here and there. Little by little, my collection grew, adding some brown, blue, black and green pieces to the mix, until I had this wall of dishes! I use it all the time. For Easter I use my blue set, 4th of July I mix the red and blue sets, Thanksgiving I mix the brown and red and you can see for yourself how I use the red for Christmas. I love how the patterns look mixed together.

Time to break out the real silver.

See how well the toile runner matches the transferware plates?

It felt like Christmas morning, for me, when I
spotted this set of 12 Spode dinner plates at an
antique store. Every one has a different wild game
scene and is named and numbered on the back. My favorite
store, Lewis and Clark, often carry reproductions of some of
these plates.

The quality of this set is amazing...
not one plate is cracked or chipped,
and they were old when I got them,
and I use them all the time!

I will honor Christmas in my heart and try to keep it all the year. ~Charles Dickens

Friday, December 23, 2011

Decking the Halls...

Rudolph greets you at our front door.

I found this vintage sled and reindeer on the same "tiquing" (what my family call antique shopping) trip, but at different stores. The Spirit of Christmas yet-to-come, guiding me, no doubt! Both Rudolph and the red sleigh are chipping, but I love the old look so I leave them as is. I've always wanted a real sleigh for the front yard, but haven't found the right one yet. Frosty is made out of tin and is pierced with snowflakes...I fill him with lights and illuminate him at night.

Every year we add live greenery to the house, with a healthy dose of red. Poinsettias brighten the flower boxes.

My daughter, Natalie, put together this silvery winter wonderland. Some of the glass bead garland and old postcards I collect are in the background.

My Christmas village is a combo of a 'It's a Wonderful Life' set and Currier and Ives houses. The Currier and Ives pieces are reproductions of homes featured in some of the prints I collect.

The "old Granville home," that Mary and George Bailey fix up is in front and Mary's childhood home is behind it to the left.

Welcome to Downtown Bedford Falls, with the Bailey Building and Loan in the background and Martini's Bar on the right.

These are three of the Currier and Ives Homes. The man was carrying firewood, but I added the little Christmas tree.

Notice Santa and his reindeer up on the housetop.

This is when George runs into the tree a man's grandfather had planted. Soon after he meets Clarence Oddbody, the angel, on the bridge. Clarence is in the background holding his copy of Tom Sawyer in which he inscribes, "Dear George, remember, no man is ever a failure who has friends..."

My kitchen sideboard.

Eat, drink and be merry!

Some of my favorite Christmas classics.

You may recognize my hot chocolate

and coffee station, in my butler's pantry,

from an earlier post.

I got these great Tom and Jerry mugs in Montana a couple of years ago. I love the milk glass. I have three or four designs. Very 30's or 40's. The vintage table cloth came from the estate sale of Frank Kelly, President Truman's speech writer. His kids gave it to me because I liked it so much.

Look at these beautiful glass garlands! About 15 years ago, I bought a shoebox full of old Christmas stuff and fell in love with the glass garlands it contained. Since then I have collected numerous strands, but they have become very expensive...where I used to buy strands for a few dollars, now they are often over $20 a strand. I especially love the multi-colored strands.

Miniature ornaments for my feather trees.

I love using beautiful ribbon to finish off my wrapping. I have to admit I save most of the ribbon I use from year to year... a habit I picked up from my dear, old, Nana...at least I don't save paper...yet!

Another collection...glass domed winter scenes.

I love finding old ornaments still in their boxes. You can see I got this box for a whopping $1!

The portraits of my great, great grandparents, Dr. Francis Henry and Petra Carrillo Goodwin, add to the old-world feeling of my house.

My Aunt Lucy often gives me a pear ornament for Christmas or Thanksgiving. She gave me this Department 56 Partridge in a Pear Tree set years ago. I "pair" it, pun intended, with an especially lovely strand of gold, glass, garland.