Our Christmas Castle

Christmas 2011

As I have mentioned in the last three posts, we got a chance this year to do Christmas in our house.  For the first time we bought a fresh Noble Fir at our local stand.  Insert, we also had to buy a tree stand, ornaments, Christmas lights, etc.  We also got some fresh cedar garland for the mantel and for around the front door. It was fun putting everything out and about. Small decorations were spread out around the house: vases of red flowers, red bead garlands and some plaid bows. We lite up our lone tree in the front yard and put some lights on the porch. I bought adorable ceramic and twig reindeer to protect our front door and even our buffalo head got a little sprucing up.  

For the mantel, I hung out stockings, added some poinsettias and hung some winter photographs on the wall.  In the dining room, I used our freshly stained built-in top to put up a collection of ceramic snow village houses my mom used to collect.  When I finally bought my own house she let me pick out my favorites and sent them along so I could have my own little village.  This always fascinates people who come to visit, one because they are beautiful and all lite up and two because 26 year olds don't normally collect ceramic Christmas houses.

This was also our first real 'party' at our house.  So we broke out the few nice plates and serving dishes we had.  We set up a drink station in the family room with warm spiced cider and a vintage red coleman cooler filled with wine and beer.  For the first party I made a gluten free cobbler, and a fresh apple pie, we also bought some cookies and a pound cake from Whole Foods.  For the second party we bought a honey baked ham, I made fresh biscuits and cut up fixings.  I made homemade cranberry sauce as well as spinach and artichoke dip. We also made New England clam chowder and served them in espresso cups, which was a huge hit!  It was great to see family and friends and I think we made a good showing!  Happy Christmas!