Hello! As seen earlier this week in downtown Holland:
Yes, we have roses blooming in December. Granted, this bush was probably helped by the fact that it's growing next to a building, but even so... December weather thus far has been very un-Decemberish for this region. Just checked our local paper, the Holland Sentinel, and its weather page shows that we've had just a trace of snow thus far - and we're already almost halfway through the month.
I have to admit, I don't miss the snow. As chief snow shoveler, grocery shopper and errand runner of the family, I am happy to not have to deal with the stuff. It's much easier - and safer - to drive on clear streets than on snow-covered ones!
All the same, it feels strange to not have any snow to speak of yet. We are probably several inches below the average snowfall already. I grew up with snow as a reliable part of December, so when it's not here, it seems odd. But we have to take the weather as it comes - and at least for now, we can enjoy roses in December.
Hello! Although I don't have a Scandinavian background, I've developed a fondness for the Christmas items of that region. I showed off a number of Scandinavian Christmas figures last year, seen HERE.
Since then, I have added three more pieces to my collection.
First up, this wooden St. Lucia figure:
Not counting the candles, she is 8 1/2" high. I purchased it for $1.50 at a thrift store. We happen to have a charming shop in town called The Tin Ceiling, which specializes in Scandinavian items; perhaps my St. Lucia figure had originally come from there. I visited the shop yesterday to see if they had my St. Lucia in stock. They did not, but I saw other wooden holiday figures of similar size and style - selling for between $45-$55 dollars!
Continuing with the wooden figures, I picked up a much smaller one for 50c at a thrift store:
This figurine is similar in style to the ones I had shown off in last year's post. It's 4 1/2" tall from base to the top of the hat. The label on the bottom says Holboll Denmark. I don't know what the current value is.
Back to Sweden, with the same holiday greeting:
I didn't know anything about this plate when I saw it at a thrift store, but I sensed it was vintage, and was only 75c, so I snapped it up. Looked it up on eBay, and learned that the company that produced it, Berggren, is Swedish. Some eBay sellers referred to the plate as mid-century in age.
A close-up:
Gotta love those dancing elves! Also gotta love that although I paid less than a dollar for the plate, an identical one recently sold on eBay for $14.99.
It just so happens that today is St. Lucia Day, a popular holiday in
Sweden and in other countries around the world -so Happy St. Lucia Day - and a God Jul to all!
Finally got around to getting our Christmas tree earlier this week. We went to a U-cut place, Janke Tree Farm in Allegan County, and cut down a 7' Canaan fir. I had lobbied hard for an eight-footer, but my husband said no, that height would mean a tree that scraped the ceiling of our family room.
One of the employees at Janke said it had been a hard summer for the trees, it being dry and very hot. Nevertheless, we saw a sea of nice trees a short walk from the parking lot:
And here is the tree we selected, awaiting the saw:
Yes, it takes more time and effort to get a tree from a tree farm versus getting one from a Christmas tree lot in town, but I like the absolute freshness of a tree we cut ourselves, and I like the drive out in the country as well!
Above, our decorated tree. As you can see, we really did have room for an eight-footer!
Unfortunately for me, the size limitation we are faced with our current house means that I've run of room to hang ornaments! Quite a few had to stay in their storage boxes this year. But of course, when my friend Libby, who's an ultra-talented knitter, gifted me with a knitted star she'd made, I gladly placed it front and center:
To its immediate left is an angel (plaid fabric with lace trim) that I'd crafted last year out of fabric from my late mother's stash. Other ornaments visible include a vintage celluoid reindeer, an ornament depicting the Olde City section of Philadelphia, an ornament I'd made from a vintage kit, an ornament I'd made for our daughter (involved cotton yarn, glue, glitter and a blown-up balloon, a clam from a seafood restaurant in Seaside, OR (trimmed in glitter), a gift tag from my late sister's last Christmas gift to me, and more.
Now do you see why I ran out of room on our Christmas tree?
Simply didn't have enough room at the top of the tree for my glass ornaments - some of the ones visible are vintage, but the Cubs one isn't (don't worry - there's a Detroit Tigers ornament nearby too -it's two ornaments to the right of the Cubs one, but doesn't show up well in this photo).
I'm glad we got a fresh-cut tree again; it doesn't seem like Christmas until we get it up!
Hello! In years past, we have visited The Jampot, located in Michigan's Keweenaw Peninsula; my husband would buy their jams and jellies by the case. The charming store, run by an order of monks, also sells a number of baked goods. I always wanted to try some, but was too cheap to buy them.
Their fruitcakes tempted me the most, particularly the one described HERE.
It did, indeed, look quite dark sitting on the counter at The Jampot, and, like most of the fruitcakes sold there, has little in the way of those icky, sticky candied fruits (in fact, some of their fruitcakes have no candied fruit at all).
I would idly think about making a Jamaican Black Cake of my own, but never did so until a month ago. Earlier this fall I had purchased Gifts From A Country Kitchen at a used book sale, and took note of the recipe for black fruitcake. Other than candied cherries, the other fruits in the recipe were dried. What's more, I had almost all the dried fruits already on hand, and decided to use dried cherries instead of the candied ones.
I didn't have candied orange peel, but did have some fresh oranges that needed to be used up, so I made my own candied peel, an easily-accomplished feat.
I did make an important substitution though - the recipes calls for soaking the fruits and nuts in rum. I don't care for rum, but had bourbon, so I used that instead. I suppose this makes my black fruitcake more Southern than Jamaican. (to that end, I also swapped pecans for the called-for almonds).
After baking, the fruitcake needed to age for at least a month. As of today, a month had passed, so it was time to unwrap it and taste-test:
Behold, a solid black fruitcake. It was baked in a 9x5 pan.
Sliced, you can see the chunks of dried fruit. The fruitcake is loaded with figs, prunes, raisins, dried cranberries, dried cherries and dates (plus that candied orange peel).
As I'm planning on giving some of the cake away to various friends and family, I had to taste it first to make sure it had turned out okay, right? The verdict: rich, moist and flavorful. It's definitely not the sort of thing to gobble down in huge slices, but I'm pleased with how it turned out!
(For more information on The Jampot, visit their site, which can be found HERE. If you're ever in the Keweenaw Peninsula, it's worth a stop).
Even though I take great glee hunting down bargains at the secondhand markets, there are occasionally times when I will - gasp - pay full price.
Case in point: for the past few years, in late fall I've bought an amaryllis bulb for indoor blooming at a time when the growing season for my own flowers has ended.
I've discovered that amaryllis bulbs seem to follow the maxim "you get what you pay for". Previously I've gotten the kits at discount stores, complete with pot and growing medium. Some bulbs have been duds, not sending up so much as a measly stalk. The ones that have bloomed were very pretty indeed, but only sent up one stalk.
Thus, I was intrigued when a local garden center, Jonker's, said that their amaryllis bulbs usually send up three stalks, each with four-six flowers. True, they cost $17.99 each, but as last year's amaryllis had been one of the duds that didn't send up a single stalk, I decided to splurge on a Jonker's bulb.
I made my purchase about about five weeks ago, and it's been blooming for a couple of weeks now (I picked out a bulb that already had a stalk up several inches). Have I gotten my money's worth? I'll let the pictures tell the story:
This is a big plant - the stalks are nearly 20" tall but haven't needed staking. Each flower is nearly 7" across and about the same number of inches in height. In short, this is one good-sized amaryllis plant! And as you can see, the bulb has, indeed, sent up three stalks.
Yes, I think I've gotten my money's worth!
(In case you were wondering, the amaryllis normally hangs out in our dining room; I took its picture outside where the light was better.)
What's that - you've never heard of a plastic Christmas tree?
Well, then, allow me to show mine off:
It's 15" high and was made by the Plastic Art Toy Corporation of America (Plasco). It dates from the 1950's and originally belonged to my husband's grandmother. Several examples currently abound on eBay and generally start at around $9.00 but some are listed at around $30.00. Mine has a couple of broken branches and is likely missing some of the original ornaments, so its value would be lower. But I love it anyway!
Some close-ups:
I love the patina of the ornaments!
Above, the tree sits on a small table covered with a "tablecloth" of four vintage handkerchiefs, all with a poinsettia design. I got these dainty pieces at an estate sale several years ago; $2.00 for the four.
The first photo in this post showed the box the plastic tree came in, and here's a detail of the box that held the handkerchiefs:
I love the bell graphics - makes the box just as worthy of display as the handkerchiefs!
I admit it, I'm quite lazy when it comes to certain categories of homemaking - I'm a good cook, keep up on the outdoor chores, and have become skilled in saving money by purchasing secondhand as often as possible.
However, I'm not the best at housecleaning and home maintenance. I guess it's in part because I grew up in a family of ten and so there were loads of chores to do while growing up. I suppose it didn't kill me, but it made me rather lazy about housework around my own home. Either that, or I inherited my dad's tendency toward laziness and not my mom's high-octane approach to homemaking.
Nevertheless, sometimes even I manage to get things done around the house. Case in point was this past week, during which Monday saw the visit from the heating and cooling guy for our furnace's annual maintenance. After he was done servicing our furnace, on a whim I asked if he did hot water heater repairs too. Turns out he can do repairs that don't require plumbing, so he was able to put in a part that had broken off inside the hot water heater. Now we can take showers with hot water that lasts longer than five minutes - yippee!
Then Tuesday I really got down to business: I'd just gotten a home carpet cleaner, seen here, so now it was time to do the minor assembly needed before using the carpet cleaner for the first time and then learning how to use the thing. I approached both tasks with a bit of trepidation, for some of the online reviews referred to leakage, loss of suction and other carpet cleaner calamities. But in actuality, assmeblage and usage were both accomplished easily.
Not to say that the task was a breeze overall. The carpet in our house is light beige and hadn't been cleaned adequately in too long a time, I admit (remember, I said I was lazy). So this meant I had to move as much as I could out of each room and vacuum very thoroughly as well. And the overall level of grunginess meant that it took quite some time to get the carpet looking halfway decent again.
I paced myself by doing one downstairs room a day. The carpet cleaner worked well - in fact, it seemed to work better than the commercial machine I rented one time. One drawback, though, is that since it's a smaller unit than a commercial carpet machine, I had to stop frequently to empty out the dirty water tank and refill the cleaning solution tank (both were done at the same time).
But the upside is that I have the convenience of doing the carpet cleaning when I feel like it, and as often as I feel like it. Who knows, now that I have my own carpet cleaning machine, I may even feel like cleaning the carpet more often!
