Four Generations and a Whole Lotta Love on Christmas Day

Our dear friends the Rousses invited us to share Christmas dinner with their entire family this year…we’re talking two wonderful great grandmothers, grandparents, mom and dad and the kids!!  Everybody in this house loves to cook…half of the family are Cajuns with a serious arsenal of family recipes, the other half are just as passionate about good Southern food! 

With 7 people working on dinner, it’s a good thing that the big kitchen had plenty of room to prepare all of the food! 

Amy’s grandmother is a champion at making deviled eggs…

Webb is getting the crab dip ready for us to snack on

while his parents put the finishing touches on gumbo!

Amy’s other grandmother carefully measures.

Amy and her mother in law check on the turkey.

The tables looked lovely!

Time to fill up the plates with all of this deliciousness!

Christmas decorations!

 

 

Flickr Tags: Christmas decorations

Christmas 2011

Just consider this a visual reminder for my aging brain for Christmas 2012.  I like to move stuff around every year to keep the boys guessing.

The entry …cause I love anything checkerboard…I brought out the lantern and filled it up with ball ornaments

The Santa collection is in the foyer this year on burlap this year

A sparkly snowman and snowflakes remind us that in spite on the very warm temperatures, it is wintertime!

The tree also changed up a bit…burlap ribbon with the paprika and moss green…and black and white feathers for my love of black and white.  Great Mimi’s hand made decorations adorn the tree and make us all smile.  Burlap skirting completes the natural look.  I really wanted to scale back this year and keep things simpler.

The mantle is clean with garland, burlap, cones and the manger scene…I just left my oversized wall pocket up.

I loaded up a small trunk that usually hides my son’s army men with all of the glittery copper, gold and silver decorations that were on the mantle last year. 

Santa approves!

This frame belonged to my great great grandmother (c. 1870/Mary Donovan Murphy) and is very delicate.  I covered cardboard with burlap and hot glued tin relief of the Madonna and child.  It looked sweet.

 

Pink, chocolate and gold for the dining room!

Some things will never change…the mini-urns, silver baby cups, mini trees and miniature nativity scenes in my English cupboard always seem just right!

Another lantern filled with ornament balls, an urn and candle, greens and a big burlap bow.

Christmas cookbooks are coupled with antique Christmas glass balls and the snowman cookie jar.

This year’s new Santa made an appearance in the boy’s bathroom…I love him!

Flickr Tags: Christmas Decorations,burlap Christmas,Christmas lanterns

Corporate Christmas Decorations

I hate it when you get so busy that you forget to take pictures of your work in it’s finished setting before all the guests show up!  I recently decorated for a large Christmas party and have to rely on the pictures I found posted on our town’s online business newspaper, CityWire, to document the design! 

Christmas Decorations to Reflect Your Room’s Palette

Red and green Christmas decorations sometimes overwhelm a room by clashing with the color palette.  In this case, such as this beautiful dining room with salmon walls, dark mahogany furniture and gold accents, choosing the room’s colors in the seasonal decorations give the room a more polished look. 

Use traditional greenery, flowers, ribbon, faux fruit, etc. that compliment the room in the same shade as the walls.  For a real punch, go for the direct opposite on the color wheel…in this case, blue.   Note the beautiful plates in the china cabinet.  Choose shades darker and lighter than the wall color for more interest and drama.

And don’t forget the sparkle…it is the holidays, after all!

Tape Ball Christmas Party!

None of us had a clue what battle lines were to be drawn at this Christmas party…it all started out with good cheer and merriment!

School was out, Christmas was just 2 days away and everyone was ready to let their hair down after the craziness of getting everything ready for the big day! 

Nothing like a glass of wine and a good visit between family friends!

Everyone brought a dish to share for dinner…the Chic-fil-a Nugget platter was inhaled by 5 teenage boys

but the girls didn’t mind…they got to party in their own room!

My friend’s house was beautifully decorated for Christmas…but what was that tacky red and green centerpiece on the kitchen table?

We were told that was our after dinner entertainment…

and the tape ball game rules were given to ALL of us…adults and kids alike.

Hmmm…most of the parents were skeptical…what’s the big deal??

What we didn’t know was that there were literally hundreds of little toys, prizes, candies, movies, money and more stuck together with clear wrapping tape inside the ball and we each had a few seconds to pull tape off and try to get out a prize before the next person grabbed it for their turn.

Little ones were excited…big kids were playing it cool…

until we discovered how much fun this was…and how badly we wanted our little prizes inside that ball!

Things started getting rough…brother against sister, husband against wife,

around and around the ball was passed, grabbed, tossed and drug to us so we could collect our lute!  What a blast!  Great idea for family reunions, birthday parties and lot’s more!  We were exhausted at the end and ready for Christmas to come!

 

Flickr Tags: Tape Ball Party,Christmas party games