Epiphany 2016

January 6, Epiphany,

the day I normally undress our Christmas trees.

Instead today I play Christmas music not yet heard

such as Aimee Mann's album....

"Whatever happened to Christmas?

It's gone and left no traces

Whatever happened to the faces

Or the glow......"

No, I'm not yet ready to let go of a tree we put up late,

and the tree has kept green so much longer

in sand in the old ice cream bucket.

January did bring an end to orange in the kitchen,

to those pumpkins that I held onto,

just as I'm holding onto this tree.

Instead I've wanted shining glass...

and greens.

And last night I brought out the three camels

we found at a Goodwill store,

in remembrance of the custom in some countries

where children leave their shoes by the door

the night of January 5th,

along with grass and water for the camels of the Magi.

The camels will go back in their box tomorrow

and I'll probably wake up one day soon,

look at the Christmas tree and say,

"Okay, you're outta here."

Then again some countries don't take Christmas finery

down until Candlemas Day so don't hold me to it.

What about you, is it all down, put away, tossed out?

[And lest you think you've escaped having to see family pictures of our Christmas, I just haven't had time to edit a hundred down to the number I can get away with posting here. ]

Merry Christmas to All

Merry Christmas to each of you and God bless!

Christmas Trees and Pumpkins

I could write about why I haven't written here at Dewena's Window in 28 days and what it has taught me, but that's a story for another day.... Except for this--

Know what you love to do and do it.

Without worrying if others will love it too.

I love this old green ice cream bucket that normally holds old newspapers. 

I've always dreamed of using it for a Christmas tree stand.

This year R.H. made it happen for me--the right watertight container to fit inside it, a bag of clean sand, a wood base to keep it steady, the tree sitting on screws to give space for uptake of water. 

And it was done. Thank you, my dear husband! I know it was a pain to do and you said you'll never do it again, but I am loving it so much! (It will be our secret that my first tree was a beautiful short one that became a lot shorter when you cut off 2 feet instead of 12 inches while the saw was hot but your mind was somewhere off in LaLa Land. Anyway, that second trip to the Home Depot was fun, wasn't it?)

Next, how to decorate it once it was up and magnificent?

Having indulged my taste for a touch of elegance in my dressing room with this skinny champagne colored Christmas tree....

With sparkly vintage ornaments...

And my desire for old-fashioned red and white in our living room...

My "Believe" Christmas tree.......

I wanted simple decorations for our fresh tree in the kitchen...

We can never get good nighttime pictures of our Christmas tree. 

This one is better....

This shows a little better the old orange Shiny Brites and the timeworn blue and purple ornaments from Poland, chosen from my collection of every speckled ornament that I could not pass up through 50 years of marriage. Our kids soon learned that Mama didn't want new stuff, only the tired and worn that somehow had managed to hold onto their glow.

Orange ornaments because of my love affair with orange that has grown so huge that I simply could not banish all the orange Fall pumpkins this year just because it's December and you simply cannot do that in Blogland.

But why not have pumpkins and Christmas trees? 

Why not have orange and green, colors that make me happy?

And pink thrown in for good measure?

Vintage ornaments, Christmas trees and pumpkins and old twisty candles that will never be lit.

Our choices should be all about what Home is to us personally, shouldn't they?

Even if it never gets pinned on Pinterest?

One of my favorite bloggers always says -- 

"Fly your own freak flag."

Shall we?

I've missed you wonderful friends; I've learned so much from you and treasure the friendship of those of you who blog and those of you who don't but keep in touch. And much love to those of you who are also on a bit of a blog break, especially to my dear friend Tam, and to one who has stopped--I wish you hadn't, Tessa. And I'm sending love to dear Poppy who is celebrating Christmas in Canada this year with beloved family. A special hello to a dear friend from the library of St. Vincent's College in Latrobe, PA who has stayed in touch since we met when I first began to blog. 

And my deep gratitude to those of you who wrote me encouraging emails during my hiatus, especially to Doreen, Benita and Tara.

And love to my family who sometimes read, at least when I remind them to, and to my three wonderful sisters who always read my posts but can't figure out how to comment--would someone please teach them how? Thank you!

And to all of you, from our home to yours, do what you love!

Blogging Break, Pretty Please!

Please excuse me,

but I find I must take a blogging break

to get ready for the big holiday next week.

A very happy Thanksgiving Day to those of 

you in the USA.

Now where did I put my pearls and little black dress?

P.S. Everyone's excused from commenting!

Pinecones and French China

I've long wanted to do a table around this pinecone pitcher we

found years ago in the mountains of East Tennessee.

These pinecone hurricanes that we got years ago in the

Bob Timberlake store in Blowing Rock, NC go nicely with the pitcher.

I use battery operated candles with them now.

Why buy flowers when the Kousa dogwood outside is still glorious?

But pinecones and fall leaves aren't all I'm thinking of as I set this table.

As we all have been, I'm thinking about Paris too.

I don't have many French dishes but I pull out what I do have.

These French faience plates we found in a Goodwill one day go on the bare table.

I posted about finding them one serendipitous day HERE.

We found these little bowls over 40 years ago in a restaurant supply store.

They aren't French but they read Petite Marmité Restaurant

and are perfect for the first course of Consomme Creams.

It's from Mildred O. Knopf's excellent 1986 Memoirs of a Cook.

She was wife of movie producer Edwin H. Knopf who was brother to

Alfred A. Knopf who published the cookbooks of a nice lady by the name of

Julia Child. Mildred was a star in the kitchen too.

We must have bread, so let's have a baguette.

And let's make it a baguette from France, non-gmo

with only flour, water, yeast and salt in it.

Costco carries it!

For our entree I followed Dorie Greenspan's recipe for Sheet Pan

Chicken with Apples and Kale.

The pictures on the right are before it went in the oven,

and the finished dish was delicious, as are all of Greenspan's.

She and her husband landed in France the night of the horrible attacks

and only heard the news when in their taxi.

HERE is a link to her recipe.

For our salad we'll have an avocado bacon salad from one of my favorite

regional cookbooks, Southern Sideboards. It's served on a French ironstone platter.

The dressing is yummy!

Juice from a lime or two, 1/4 cup olive oil, 1/2 cup of sour cream,

1/4 cup mayonnaise, and 2 cloves of garlic, minced.

Thank you for letting me make like a tablescaping and food blogger!

Don't you find that it's comforting to lose yourself in homey things

when your heart is heavy? I do.

I hope to post the dessert to this meal next.

It's by a French actress who is not so well known in this country.

I'll save her name for the post but she was "strongly considered for the lead

in Casablanca."

We're Amy Howard Dropouts

It was a black pine table we bought in 1971

and stripped to natural in the 1980s,

and by 2015 had yellowed horribly.

I fell in love with this table....

I tore the page out of a magazine but don't remember

which one it was to credit.

It was an Italian table, circa late 1800s.

It probably had many layers of paint to give it

that wonderful shade.

I thought that R.H. and our firstborn could duplicate it.

Off to Benjamin Moore I went and bought 

Amy Howard's Cracked Patina system.

My guys got busy turning my old dining table

into an Italian masterpiece.

They spent hours in the shop.

Brown Eyes kept them company.

They brought a table leaf in for me to approve

the color I chose for the first layer.

I loved it but panicked at adding the next step

of Cracked Patina,

and the gray paint that would follow that.

Would it give me the look of an old Italian table,

or would it give me a mess?

I decided to become an Amy Howard dropout

and told them just to seal it.

Maybe I'm just not a Cracked Patina kind of gal

because I love it the way it is.

Above is a picture from my next post of a fall table and meal.

I hope you'll come back on the weekend for that,

and I hope you'll tell me here if you're a

Amy Howard graduate!

A Christmas Nightmare

[British Homes & Gardens December 2014]

No, not the Christmas tree above.

I actually loved this "tree" when I saw it last year in the

December issue of British Homes & Gardens.

My Christmas nightmare is dreaming that it is

Christmas morning and NOTHING has been done.

Do you ever feel like that?

We haven't even had Thanksgiving Day yet,

those of us in the USA,

and I'm feeling panicked that I can't possibly be ready

for Christmas.

Am I the only one who is having a Christmas nightmare--

already?