so here we are today in the kitchen.
Hangout of several dozen snowmen and the odd moose.
So I guess the tree is as good a place to start as any. I’m assuming that you’ve already seen the very personal tree in my bedroom, and the large elegant one in the big room. The one in here is only about 3 foot tall and is decorated with an assortment of tiny wooden German/scandinavian style ornaments, mostly angels, bells,and santas. There’s a collection of miniature antique-finish kitchen paraphenalia: a sugar sifter, egg whish, cookie cutters and so on, and this year, the collection of cinnamon cookie-dough ornaments that David helped me make a few weeks back. There’s enough spice in the recipe that the faint scent of cinnamon has permeated the whole kitchen. Just wonderful.


there are candy canes for visitors, snowmen and only the sharpest of eye ever notices that the angel on top is actually a cat.
Over on the dresser are … surprise,surprise … more snowmen

the ones in stripy hats I found at a discount shop many years ago, for something like $2.50 each, so I bought … ahh … let’s just say ‘lots’ shall we and leave it at that.
The two in front at left, I knitted from Alan Dart’s wonderful ‘Snome’ pattern. Somewhere there’s a third one in pieces that will get sewn up one day.

the sleepy child and the two pixies, currently sitting on ‘Happy Christmas’ blocks painted by friend Maz, have been around about as long as I have, while the wee gnome in the pointy hat is a more recent purchase.
They were joined today by this sweetie,

a birthday pressie from my friend Karen, who knows that I have no problem at all with getting Christmas things for my natal day. Her hat is a red and white mushroom – or would that be toadstool?
Totally gratuitous cat:
and moving on, more snowmen, on a shelf made by my father in the early 1950s

This, as I say every year, so apologies to those who’ve been here before,
is the very first Christmas card I ever received.
I was probably only a few days old, and it is signed from my mother’s godson, Alan John, then the ripe old age of eighteen months. Just between you and me, I suspect the hand of my lovely Godmother Gwen.
Mum used to tape it up every year [ that’s the brown marks at the top ] and when years of this treatment took their toll, I had it laminated. I apologise to any collectors of ephemera currently having the vapours over my phillistine ways, but it was that, or stop using and enjoying it.
Granted I have several other copies of the Night Before Christmas, but this is the one I used to read to the kids on Christmas Eve.
Moving on, the ladder over the bench gets an extra layer of frankly fake greenery and equally faux cranberry garland, hung with an assortment of my crochet snowflakes. On the wall behind are Danish Christmas plates and a seasonal bunting made by Tara McGrath. If you’re particularly observant, you may even have noticed the plaid bows tied to the ceiling fan. I refer you back to rule 213
Over the window: more greenery, crochet flakes, and on the window ledge, yet more snowmen, and wooden ‘candles’ [ again the handiwork of Maz, the Crazy Haberdasher ]

Teas and coffee in seasonal tins, mostly from the Op Shop [ Thrift Store ]

and yes, even more snowflakes, Christmas plates [ although these ones are up there all year round ] and just a peak at what awaits in the explosion at the North Pole rumpus room
