Coming Home For Christmas

Here Are Some Photos of Christmas in Our Cottage
(Double Click for a better view)

I Love to Include These For the Kids
It Has Been A long Time Since
They Have Been Home For Christmas

Way Back When!
Christopher, Laura, Jennifer
(Est. 1984?)

The Tree

Creche From My Childhood

Mini Cake Stand and Glittery 40's Girl

Contents of the Mini Cake Stand~Tiny Ornaments

Snow Men Everywhere

Snow Fam and Vintage Wire Tree

Kitchen

Shelves of the Beautiful Cabinet

Uncle Tom Gave Me One Christmas~
Tears of Joy and Surprise Were Shed!

Dining Room

Mantel With the Carollers Gramma Jo
Gave Me Year After Year.
Cherished Memories

Buffet With the Beautiful Roses from
Laura And Robert's Christmas Wedding
(No One Can Say We Did Not Get Our Money's Worth on These!)

Spencer's Bear, Poley, Joins the Dinner Guests!

Not a Creature Was Stirring Not Even A Lamb!
(Sorry Not A Mouse Fan!)

The Guest Room

No Guests Overnight This Christmas!

Our Bedroom Dresser

Memories and Reflections

Our Room

The Office

Family Room

Bathroom Shelf Top

Grampa Ross' Childhood Sleigh Bells Among the Other Stuff.
The Bells are Nearly 100 Years Old!

Beloved Byers Carolers Up Close

Some Festive Ducks Aunt Beth
Gave Me Last Year in the Entry

That is it, sure wish you could stop by for awhile! I'd take a picture of the front porch but the gorgoeus poinsettias I bought just two days ago are now all frozen, shriveled up and dying.

C'est La Vie~It Shall Be A Merry Christmas Even Without Them!

The Turning of Our Hearts At Christmas Time

This post is one I wrote on my personal blog and just wanted to include it here also even though it deviates from my niche of interior decorating just a bit. I have met so many wonderful Christian women on the blogs and I am sure some of these things are on your minds as well in this Christmas season.

With all the glitz and glam and fun of Christmas that we enjoy so much ...always in the back of my mind is what I can do for someone in need at this time of year. I am almost overwhelmed when I think about it. So many need so much or have suffered a lot this year and just need to be remembered. I am trying to think of special ways to help out that would mean something to these people.

One thing I thought of was donating a nice coat from my closet to a homeless person when a little Cub Scout came by asking me to support this effort. It was a small sacrifice to help someone stay warm during the bitter cold of winter.


Another thing I want to do is sign up my neighbors (who have had a tremendously difficult year with multiple serious medical issues) for some beautiful caroling from the youth in our church.

While at church today I was prompted to invite a young woman who is living here all alone from Columbia and missing her family, to come to our family dinner in a few weeks. It would be terrible to be lonely at Christmas time.


I have two uncles left that are both shut-ins. I want to send them some scanned and copied photos of the good old days to cheer them up. I know that would make my parents happy to think that I did something for their siblings.


I want to send some grocery gift cards to the Ronald Mc Donald type house here in Oakland that always needs milk for the families staying in the house while their tiny babies and children are in the hospital. OOur family received this tender mercy with our youngest granddaughter more than once over the past 15 months when she was hospitalized. I want to pay it forward.

Our church is donating school supplies and children's books to needy kids this year. The needs and lack of necessities for so many is so apparent it is mind-boggling.


I am looking for some more ideas that are not costly but can mean a lot and that is where you all come in. What are your ideas for reaching out this year? There is so much to do and the Lord has need of willing hands. If we can each just do a little something to make a difference in someone's life what a better Christmas it will be for all. The earth needs this right now, don't you think? I need more ideas. I have a friend who just lost her mom, my friend is suffering...what to do..what to do??

You are all such ministering angels, I know you can think of something.

photos as seen on Flickr

Vintage Chrsitmas Decorations

My friend, Deanna, has this awesome Christmas Blog and she is totally the Queen of Vintage Christmases. If you want to see what was happening when I was growing up in the 50's and 60's and what Christmas looked like then...check out this fun website for Shiny Brite Ornaments, etc. These little video clips bring back so many memories for me. It is amazing but I can still remember the packaging of these items the originated post WWII in the late 40's. Very Nostalgic!

I remember having to painstakingly put them all back in the boxes and having to take the tinsel off the one strand at a time to save for the next year. The ornaments were very thin glass and easily broken so we had to take special care of them. It was never as fun as putting the tree up of course. That is about the only thing that hasn't changed in the ensuing years!

I am glad that Deanna is so interested in this time way before she was born because it really brings me back to those bygone days in my own childhood. I am hopeful that our kids will find it interesting to look at things as they were in the good ole days! All these Shiny Brite products were available way into the 60's so this was basically my whole childhood. Everybody had them...and I do mean everybody! In those times there was not much variety in Christmas decor.

No one had a Santa collection or a snowman collection then. It was just after the war when things were taken off rationing and this is what was available to the households of America. They were thrilled just to be reunited with loved ones and to be able to light their Christmas trees again. It was simply enough.


Our friends had the bubble lites by the time the mid- 50's rolled around and as kids we were always quite envious of that. In our house though we were lucky too! We had a paste board nativity set that is the only tangible remnant of Christmas from when I was a little girl. It is a prized possession in my Christmas collection today.

The colors are still bright!

It has held up well considering it is just a heavy cardboard stable.

When Christmas is past you just fold up the part where the wise men and shepherd are and it is its own self-contained box for storage. It was pretty cleverly made really and probably cost about a dollar or two. Now, to me it is priceless. What do you treasure from Christmas as a child?

If you like vintage~Stop over and meet Deanna and please tell her I sent you!

ornaments and bubble lites as seen on flickr

Beautiful Mansion Tour~The Dunsmuir House

Yesterday my sister-in-law, Gail, and I went to the annual Christmas Season Tour of the Dunsmuir House in the Oakland Hills. This is something our family has done every couple of years for a long time but I had never been there with Gail before. We arrived for the first tour at 11:00 and it was so Christmasy and cold and crispy out. The sun was shining and the sky was bright blue but a jacket and scarf felt excellent.

The 40 acre grounds of the mansion are so beautifully kept and there is always excitement in the air at the gates. There is a large pond/small lake on the estate with geese, ducks and even some wild turkeys making themselves at home. There are gazebos and arbors, and benches everywhere, it is a little paradise really. Since the family actually lived in San Francisco, this place was just their summer home and get away spot when stress overtook them. What? Sadly, though the lady of the house only lived a short time after they moved in so she did not have much time to enjoy it.


This is a post card photo. If you had been there today you would have seen lots of wreaths in the windows and beautiful garlands everywhere. This house was built in 1899 by Alexander Dunsmuir as a wedding present for his wife, Josephine. It has 16, 224 sq feet, 37 rooms, 20 bedrooms, 9 and 1/2 baths and 10 fireplaces and had 12 servants on the house staff. Ladies, where did we go wrong~this was the poor girl's wedding present? Hello! You' ll know I am just kidding when you read what Jim did for me while I was off playing!

You cannot take photos inside the house so these two pictures were on greeting cards. They do not do the inside decor justice at all but I just wanted you to be able to get a feel for the inside by looking at them. This house is truly magnificent. A docent once told us that that wood working in the dining room could not be duplicated today as the craft has died away with the times.

Each year different groups of people decorate the mansion. Boy, would I ever love to get in on this project. That would be fantastic. The Christmas tree in the foyer of the home ascends up through the staircase opening and must be 25 feet tall. It was decorated with gigantic red and orange glass glistening ornaments and was absolutely breathtaking. There is a stained glass dome in the cupola just above the tree~beautiful!

This room was far more elegantly decorated this year than this photo depicts

This is a photo of the front porch today. It was not crowded at all~we were happy about that but it is just another indicator of harder times or perhaps people were just doing other Christmas activities~hopefully! We had a similar feeling about the economy though when San Francisco seemed deserted last weekend. But on with the house... The porch wraps all the way around this gorgeous Colonial-Revival home and they had done a beautiful job of making it look festive and oh, so Christmasy. The Santa you see is just under life size.

Here is a photo I took of the back side of the house.
The flowers in the foreground were brilliant.

The grounds are absolutely beautiful and very tranquil.
This little tree is the only one that is
decorated outside. The white cement bench behind it faces
directly toward the front of the house acrossed a small meadow.

The Pathway Leading to the Carriage House

~This is Gail~
We had the perfect day and will make this our new tradition!
After the mansion tour we went to Lafayette
for lunch and some fun holidays shops touring of our own.

The House From the Meadow

Can you just imagine a wedding reception in this meadow? They entertained a lot of friends here and I can just envision a summer game of croquet with all the ladies dressed in their long pastel corseted dresses and big fancy hats and the men in their spiffy jackets and vests and ruffled shirts and top hats ...can't you? In the name of progress we have lost a lot of our style, haven't we?

The stroll we took to the Carriage House
~the peacefulness was wonderful~

The topper to the whole fun day was that Jim was home cleaning up the yards and he also cleaned our carpet in the family room and washed the floors. Hello, I am truly in heaven, I'm sure of it...when did I die?

These are some the things I love doing during the Christmas Holidays. If you read my blog regularly you know that I have been doing this kind of stuff for the past three weekends. But just so you won't think that all I ever do is party...I spend five long days this week decorating our house for Christmas. It was just like moving but not going anywhere. As I was doing it I was thinking I must be totally daft~but when it is done...I love it. And I know that this kind of work is my play actually too! It is totally worth the struggle to get it all done. I just love it when the first string of Christmas lights are plugged in~it is so magical. I have had that same feeling every year since I was a little kid.


I will post a few photos of our house if you want to peek in the window and see what I've been up to all week besides blogging. I am going to have a few luncheons between now and Christmas with a few girlfriends coming over for the fun and then a big family dinner on the Sunday before Christmas. I am excited about that~we love getting together with friends and family over the holidays. I hope you get to do the same. It is awesome! I hope you enjoyed a vicarious trip to the Dunmuir House with us today!

Personalizing Your Gift Wrapping

I saw this in Country Living and it reminded me that I use to love to wrap presents in brown paper and then decorate them with colored markers, stencils, etc. By adding a beautiful ribbon or bow the gifts can look so festive, even elegant. I like the uniformity under the tree. Sometimes I think that all the various colors and patterns of regular wrapping paper can be tiring.

Like These

A lot of people that work in the design field feel that way. When you work with color all the time, sometimes you just need something simple and uncomplicated. Too me the brown paper is just more restful to the eye. One of the things I love about it is that you can embellish each gift to suit the recipient with regular ribbons, the miraculous wired variety, raffia, leaves and berries, an ornament or anything else your imagination can conjure up for that individual.

Can Be Easier on the Eyes

It might even be fun to have your kids decorate the boxes wrapped in brown paper with their drawings, stickers, signing their name or whatever else they can dream up just for fun. I know as a grandma that would be fun for me to receive. This should be supervised I am sure!

As I was enjoying the photo I realized, I have gotten very lazy in this department. It started when I had little kids of my own and was so busy that I would just quickly wrap things and not even put bows or ribbons on them. Jim and the kids didn't care and it was a lot easier. Another thing that comes to mind is that my mom made full use of my wrapping when I lived at home. I would wrap all her presents, even my own that were taped securely in boxes so I could not see the contents. I may just have wrapper's burnout. Whatever the cause, the laziness ensued.


With the advent of gift bags and the elimination of department stores that gave boxes as a courtesy, I just got into the ease of gift bags. But when I saw this today it reminded me that presentation is important in just about everything and is almost a part of the gift itself. Don't get me wrong, gift bags can be lovely and can serve their purpose at other occasions. To me they just aren't the same as packages beautifully wrapped and sitting under your Christmas tree. You can also use white butcher paper or any solid color of your choice. I have even wrapped small gifts in copy paper and it works great and looks pretty with a gold bow made easily with the wired ribbon.

Unless These Are Short
They Scrape The Bottom of the Tree
And Crush Your Tissue Paper Too!

Since I don't have little ones around anymore, I think I am going to turn over a new leaf and be more creative in my wrapping. It might be fun to get out some of the old scrapbooking things and do something creative. There is a time and a season for everything and this just might be my season for this. Most of our gifts have already been ordered and shipped this year for the kids and their families. But I still do have some shopping to do for family that lives here and a few friends so they may be the lucky guinea pigs recipients....we"ll see.


What I said previously about the plain paper being restful to the eye, is also true about the white dishes. During the holidays we are just drenched in deep colors and patterns and the white is so refreshing. What do you think about this earth shattering subject? Geesh, maybe I am just loonier that a Christmas fruit cake, surely there are weightier matters to discuss!

In the good news department, I am one day away from having my house decorated. Yippee! Then I just have to clean, do the porches, shop, wrap in my new style, Christmas letter and cards, prepare menus, my list goes on and on just like yours! I love it though, don't you? Gotta love it, 'tis the season~there is no turning back now...19 days and counting down!


photo #1 Country Living, all others as seen on flickr except the ornament/mine