We are brining our first turkey, and it does look rather pretty (as Nigella’s Christmas cookbook said it would). I’ve never made one before, but since they were on sale, and I got a big honking roasting pan for a wedding present, I figured: why not?
In other less pleasant new, as you could tell from my tweetings, we have Christmas mice! Not as cute as it sounds, I’m afraid.
Thankfully we have a house full of (now) seasoned mouse hunters, and have caught and released all the creatures we’ve found so far.
Also thankfully, they seem to solely be living in our lower kitchen cupboards, which store mostly cookware and well sealed pantry goods.
The little buggers were smart enough to claw through the plaster in the exact right sliver of a spot on the wall, which was not covered in wood, and would give them entrance to our cupboards.
They were not, however, smart enough to choose a house wihout 3 resident cats.
The first years my parents got married, my mom sewed up some Christmas decorations for their little Scarborough basement apartment out of bright green and red and white calico. She made two lovely stockings, and a bunch of little love birds for their tree.
Every Christmas they get pulled out from storage, and still look beautiful – they’ve held up better than most of our familys other ornaments. And on Christmas morning, if I’m at home I wake up to the handmade green stocking, at the end of my bed.
So, now that this is our first married Christmas, I figured I’d make some little love birds for us too, out of more scraps leftover from the wedding
This is my wonky little birdy prototype. He’s a little funny looking, but he’s a first attempt, and I think once I tweak the placement on the next one, he’ll be looking much cuter.
But now… Mmmmmmmmmmm… Liam is baking bread! So excited!
Today we decorated while listening to Bon Iver and Fleet Foxes on vinyl – both really cozy winter albums.
I even crafted up a new garland for the tree – it was just little circles cut out of scrap fabric from all those banners I made for the wedding. I just ran them through the sewing machine in a row. Easy!
In fact, I think I’m going to make a more thorough attempt at holiday crafting this year.
This is our new little media centre.
Yeah, it’s pretty sweet.
I like that I’ve contrasted our new (not so classy) gigantic tee vee with (classy) antique copies of Dickens procured in England. That is how we roll.
The new tv bench is one of my favourite parts of this set up though. It’s just from Ikea (of course) but is built rather solidly, out of wood rather than a wood-like product. It’s birch, and reminds of Scandinavian kindergarten furniture for some reason. There’s something pleasantly minimalist, and somehow friendly about it. It’s open in the back (meaning cords from all those consoles are an issue) but we rather cleverly stuck some baskets under it to hold all our various componants and controllers.
And warning everyone: because of all this I may just become even more of a hermit than I normally do this winter. But wouldn’t you too?
the Sis on 