The First Cottage Christmas.....

I looked at Kee and said, this cottage was built for a Christmas tree and he agreed.  We've got a large, lush artificial tree, 25 years old, expensive when bought and worth the money, still in awfully good shape, despite being a cat ambush launch point for several generations.  It looks a little smaller in the cathedral ceiling'd living room of the cottage.  We gathered all the holiday decorations from all over the place - the shed, Kee's father's basement, pool shed and garage loft.  I did buy a couple of bird ones - not going 14-cat-lady-crazy - just a couple of tasteful glass and ceramic ones.

The tree looks fantastic... lights reflecting off the pine, the fireplace glowing beside it.  We'll be having a few evenings with friends over and the ambiance will be very chestnuts roasting on a open fire -ish.

This is a big change for us, and even for our adult children, after 25 years of Christmas on Klondyke Road, but I think the atmosphere will be the same.  I see lots of the same, but slightly different, holiday memories and pictures........

............  and now Christmas is over.  The atmosphere in the cottage was perfectly seasonal.  Fires glowed almost every night, family and friends felt very comfortable and welcome.  There's a giant snowman outside the sunroom between us and the ice grey lake.

I've baked and cooked quite a bit while being off these past 2 weeks.... trying recipes out - for future breakfasters....  trying to improve my poached egg technique, my hollandaise facility, a smoked salmon & cream cheese omelet....  toffee crunch apple tarts, mincemeat tarts, sour dough bread.... there is WAY too much stuff around here.

We've been working on the mudroom.  I bought a 5-shelf/2 door cupboard, which Kee reinforced at the top and bottom back panel and then mounted on the long back mudroom wall, about 2.5' up the wall.  This allows a tighter back to the wall, as it takes the hot water rad out of play and gives room for 2 shelves under the suspended cupboard.  I'll paint the unit to match the two tone wall colours - cleverclever fakeout that should deceive no one.  All the stuff from the small, tall wooden closet - platters, baking ingredients - have gone into the cupboard.  I've DollarStore'd and got a ton of matching different sized storage containers, Staple'd and put clear labels with all the contents on them and Walmart'd and bought a tonne of small, hinged, glass topped, apothecary-type jars, emptied all my spices/herbs into them and now they're displayed, alphabetically, on 3 tiered wire shelvets.  Make your neurosis work for you - not against you. 

Oh yeah, and all the plastic containers are alphabetized too.