Yes, the sea­son is upon us and I just love it! Out comes the glit­ter and glue… we think of as many ways to make a mess with glit­ter as we can. Mum is busy mak­ing enough sausage rolls and mince pies to feed an army. ‘We need to have sup­plies for guests who stop by over Christmas.’ she says. The heavy fruit cake has been doused in rum sev­eral times a week for a month and is ready for icing this week­end. The girls cram all the tacky plas­tic dec­o­ra­tions on top and we bring it out for guests for after­noon tea… I have to say my father law is the only per­son who really enjoys it with us Brits!

Tonight we will put the fin­ish­ing touches on our tod­dler size Santa. We have been mak­ing this since I was a girl, mum and I con­tinue the tra­di­tion with the girls. I will post the fruits of our labor in the next few days.

Now is the time to think about table dec­o­ra­tions for the many meals we will to cook for fam­ily and friends in the next few weeks. Here are some of my inspi­ra­tions for this season’s décor.

I tend to cre­ate a big dis­play with Christmas tree branches, holly and pine cones that runs down the table and accent with can­dles but love some of the cleaner looks show below. I do find that nap­kins tied with rib­bon always make a table looked pulled together and have a thing for burlap as you can see with my out­door dec­o­ra­tions. The bunches of rose­mary tied to each chair would make a fan­tas­tic aroma as well as a beau­ti­ful dec­o­ra­tion.
Happy Holidays!