Bright Copper Kettles and Warm Woollen Mittens...

So enchanted have I been with Mara's fabulous idea of sharing our kitchen favourites, I thought I'd start a new one... show us you CHRISTMAS favourites!

We put our decorations up last weekend and I was delighted anew by some of the lovely things we have for the Christmas tree. After 11 months hidden in the attic it was great to rediscover these baubles. (That's the decorations in the attic, not me...).

So, here we are...

As you can see we aim for the 'jumble-sale' effect with our tree. Yes, it's a little crowded; no, it's in no way co-ordinated, but nonetheless it brings a smile to my face every time I see it. Christmas is no time for good taste and elegance now is it?

These teeny sweaters must surely rank among the 'best Christmas tree decorations EVER'. I find them adorable. We bought some in the UK over the last few years (from Accessorize) but were highly excited to find some in Canada too... and even more excited that we found them after Christmas so they were 75% off.

Another favourite decoration is this cute knitted monkey. My friend Vicky sent him to me last year, bought on her travels in Africa. I have a group of brilliant University friends and the 5 of us have a long-running amusement with monkeys (loooooong story!). The sheer variety of monkey-themed gifts that have passed between us in the 10 years since we graduated never ceases to amaze me.

I think it's nice that the tree is a reflection of the things that we love... so of course here's my cookie-baking ornament. This was a present from my fellow-foodie-friend Sarah this year, given to me a few weeks early so we could enjoy it before Christmas.

Something Rob and I both enjoy - the snow, and snowshoeing. We had a fabulous snowshoe walk last Winter, using snowshoes borrowed for a weekend from Base supply, and hope to do the same again this year. We bought these mini snowshoes in the LL Bean flagship store in Freeport, Maine, whilst on our Fall road-trip. I love to pick up Christmas tree decorations from around the world, so each one brings back memories. Mind you, I give thanks to the great LL Bean every time I put on my fantastic down-jacket that I bought there on the same trip. It's been incredibly warm over the last few weeks when Winter arrived here with a vengeance. You can see a mini-cardigan in the shot too.

My fondness for Emma Bridgewater is well documented, and how fortunate that I have friends with the same taste! This is another gift from Sarah - it a gorgeous scented candle, which smells wonderful. It's great when you find a friend who loves the same things as you do, and Sarah definitely falls into this category. Gifts this year from her have ranged from the delightfully tasteful Emma Bridgewater to the delightfully kitch Elvis rubber duck and the Jim'll Fix It soap on a rope. Comedy gold!

And so we move to the fireplace. In an ideal world this would be a real fire, but we're in an Army Quarter so don't get much choice about this kind of thing. However, we wouldn't be able to put fairy lights on the hearth if it was real, so I guess you could say we're making the best of it. The fairy-light ball on the table next to the fire is a favourite of mine, though not strictly a Christmas favourite, as it's there all year. I shamelessly stole the idea from my sister-in-law (or possibly it was my niece?) and made it as a present for Rob last Christmas. The three stockings that hang from the mantelpiece were bought here in Canada last year in the marvellous 'Michaels' art and craft superstore. I have to ration my visits there, otherwise I could bankrupt us.

As you can see from the mantelpiece, we like to have lots of real greenery in the house, and had an expedition out on the cross-country skis last weekend to gather some. Most is over the fireplace, but lots of our pictures are adorned with a good sprig of it too. Or an entire branch... I don't go for subtlety here.

And what am I listening to whilst decorating the house for the festive season?! Pure Christmas kitch of course. My favourite ever Christmas CD is the one on the left, bought in Bath and Body Works in Las Vegas last December. It's a charity double CD, a compilation of old and new, containing such delights as 'It's a Marshmallow World' by Bing Crosby, and 'Green Christmas' by the Barenaked Ladies. I love it. A recent acquisition is the Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers album, a treasure unearthed in Walmart recently. 'Hard Candy Christmas' is my favourite song. And of course Christmas wouldn't be Christmas without John Rutter. Perhaps you won't have heard of him, but anyone who has ever sung in a choir will be familiar with his gloriously harmonised carols. It became trendy in the singing world to dismiss his work as slightly 'naff', but that's all part of its charm. It's fabulous to sing, and really accessible to listen to.




I'll finish with another new purchase - this wonderful Santa's washing line, bought recently in Canadian Tire. It's hanging across the kitchen window and actually brought a spontaneous smile to my face this morning as I staggered down the stairs, half asleep, in search of my morning cup of tea. And after all, that's what Christmas should be all about - bringing a smile to your face in whatever way works for you.

Happy Christmas to one and all.

Raindrops on Roses and Whiskers on Kittens...

Inspired by some of my fellow bloggers, these are a few of my favourite (kitchen) things...

I adore the shape of this mixing bowl and the set of measuring cups. The cups came from the confusingly named 'Salisbury Bedding Centre' in Salisbury (UK), which sells all manner of exciting kitchen goods as well, of course, as bedding. I was excited to find the similarly-shaped pink bowl/jug here in Canada. It makes it look as though they've been reproducing in my kitchen cupboard.

This set of melamine bowls makes me happy every time I use them! The gorgeous pastel colours, the way they 'nest' so neatly inside eachother... kitchen bliss! I think I bought them in Winners - part of the TK Maxx chain of jumble sales, I mean shops.

More bowls. These sets of prep-bowls are popular here in Canada and I have seen them in many designs. However, this is the nicest one I've seen. I actually bought them for myself as a birthday present last year - I know where Rob keeps presents he's going to give me, so I bought it and snuck it into his 'present drawer' (keeping my eyes closed obviously, so I didn't see what else was in there).

I adore all of our Emma Bridgewater crockery, but here are some of my favourite pieces. The bowls (see a theme here?) are a lovely shape, and I particularly love the Garden Bird designs. Most of our crockery is the polka-dot pattern, but we have a couple of pieces in other patterns. The little bottle was a present from my friend Sarah. I often pick wildflowers to go in it, but they're a little thin on the ground right now (buried under the snow).

I sometimes feel like the lovechild of Emma Bridgewater and Cath Kidston. I adore pretty much everything they produce. This is my favourite teatowel... but woe betide anyone who tries to actually USE it - this rectangle of beautifully-printed fabric is purely for decoration.

OK, enough of all that good taste... here's some of the kitch that you were no doubt waiting for. What more fabulous way to drink tequila than from these great little cactus-shaped shot glasses. They rarely get used, but look wonderful in the glass-fronted drinks cabinet. I've been planning a cowboy-themed party for years and when it finally happens you can bet your bottom dollar that these will be playing a role. Yee haw! Slam 'em cowboy!

Retro-packaged groceries. Fabulous. See, I don't just photograph them in supermarkets, I sometimes buy them too.

Doing the dishes can be a miserable job, but it somehow seems less of a chore when one has co-ordinated the gloves, sponge and washing-up liquid! I found these lime-green gloves in Ikea and bought 3 pairs.

Tea plays an important role in our lives - what a relief it was to find that Canadian supermarkets stock Typhoo! I still have to get my Lady Grey brought over from the UK, but I can live with that. I hate the drips of tea that result from trying to carry a used teabag across the kitchen to the bin, but now - voila! - problem solved with this sweet little teabag dish, a gift from my husband. I often consider how lucky Rob is to have married me - I think many women would be horrified to receive some of the gifts that he buys... I'm often given such things as teatowels and dish-sponges (see the heart-shaped one in one of the pictures above), but fortunately I love them. Good job really, as I think I received my lifetime's supply of diamond jewellery when he foolishly took me to choose my own engagement ring...

More tea. I love my blue enamel teapot. It's a lovely shape and most importantly, doesn't break when you drop it! This is Rob's mug actually, but it's the best one ever when you need a gallon of tea. I'm sure that you're all thinking that it's a genuine Emma Bridgewater piece, and the connoisseurs among you will be wondering why you've never seen it in her catalogue... but no, I made it myself! No, not the mug, clearly, I'm not a potter, but I painted it in one of those great paint-your-own pottery cafes in Salisbury. I figured that the polka-dots would hit the limit of my artistic ability. I think it's quite convincing.

I love to bake, and then I love to put cakes and cookies into these tins. The spotty one was my first, and is still my favourite. It became well-known in the staffroom at my previous school. If 'the tin' was on the table then breaktime treats were in store! The Easter one was a Dollarama bargain.

Our enormous Canadian fridge is covered in magnets (well, one of our fridges... a further post about the beer-fridge is already forming in my mind...). This cheerful moose is my favourite. I notice now that it's 'ironically' holding a photo of me...

And finally, following my recent trip to NYC, in pride of place in my kitchen is my tin of Dean and Deluca Nigella Seeds. I had never heard of Dean and Deluca until I started reading Nigella's recipe books, and ever since I saw that picture of the tin of Nigella seeds I just knew I had to have some. Will I ever use them? Who cares?

And so, Julie Andrews style, I'll skip back to my kitchen now and smile when I use some of my favourite things. Because it's true what she (nearly) sang: "When the headache bites, when the excess-glass-of-wine-last-night stings, when I'm feeling sad, I simply remember my favourite things, and then I don't feel so bad".