Christmas Eve and day

Gathered for Brown / Ellis Christmas Eve at Sophie and Paul's house. 

 

Dang, that girl can set a table. 

 

Simple and beautiful. Cuttings from her yew. 

 

Milk glass and vintage brass candlesticks. 

 

Mantel. 

 

Oyster tree and little pencil tree   

 

More preciousness. 

 

The total view

 

Ed serves up the chicken from a veritable chest as Mom and Karen look on. 

 

Our Mamaw always cooked her own chicken. We didn't. 

 

Total spread. Kathy's famous baked beans and Karen's newly famous crockpot macaroni and cheese ❤️❤️

 

Satisfied customers 

 

After dinner we viewed our Mamaw's pitcher collection. 

 

We shed a few tears remembering. We all selected one to take away and treasure. Will repeat with grands on Monday. 

 

Daughters, Mom and nieces. All I could think of is how our Mamaw would have loved to see us!

Solstice

Annual Woolverton / McNeil holiday party. We celebrate winter solstice, the shortest day of the year. It all started with a show our kids watched called Little Bear. They had a Solstice party so we adopted it as our two family's holiday gathering. 

 

I started with a chocolate pound cake, served on one of the cake stands I collected for Sophie and Paul's wedding. 

 

On a chocolate roll, I cranked out perfect Smoky Oats. 

 

Candy sent me a preview of the cast of characters for the meal that she and Mary Grace had shopped for. 

 

They became this. I had never had kohlrabi (that's the little green sprouty guy in the previous pic), it was good. 

 

Greeted by this beautiful table. Loved the red tulips and white sticks. 

 

Cute garland. Turns out it was my gift! Soup spoons that matched my flatware. 

 

My plate. All so good. Traditional winter fare. Corned beef with fresh horseradish sauce , boiled potatoes (in the beef brine!), roasted vegs, Romanian cucumber salad, red cabbage slaw. Oh my. 

Cracker time. 

 

 

Would you believe they contained musical instruments? 

 

As a whole McNeils are a bit musically challenged with a few exceptions. Each person got a little tooter that sounded a different note. Music was included to play songs. 

 

Hilarity ensued. This was Jingle Bells. 

 

Gifts were enjoyed. Chris got a giant snicker bar. I didn't get many pics, including Ryan's Darth Vader toaster that seared the Star Wars logo on the bread 🙄. 

 

Candy got a pillow to hold her iPad while watching in bed. Fun night. 

Cheer-huahuas

Here is a little happy for y'all. My friend Vicki's chihuahuas. 

 

Bear

 

Little Lola

Papa Rock

 

Sweet mama Pebbles. 

 

My babies snuggling. 

 

Snuggle babies. Dupree way up in that blanket. 

 

So sweet

 

Decided to make red beans the New Orleans way. 

Cooked with ham and sausage served on the side. Turned out so good.  

Pitcher perfect

Warning! There are 3 new posts. Keep scrolling after reading this one!!  

 

Ok, so it started like this. My Mamaw Brown collected little pitchers as souvenirs on all our travels. Jan found the boxes in her attic. Jan, Sophie and I convened at Mom's house to unwrap them all and stroll down memory lane. It was so fun.  Each piece of 1990 newspaper unfurled to reveal a treasure. 

 

Sophie loved this one

 

Most brought back great stories of camping days past. Some of them no one could remember. 

 

Here they all are. So many had been broken and re glued together. Probably because us kids played with them. 

 

I love the ones with the places stamped on them. 

 

We plan to show them at Christmas when we all get together and let everyone select ones to keep. I still miss my Mamaw, what a great spirit. When we opened the Yellowstone pitcher, Mom recalled the story. We took a trip there in 1978. I was in college. Mom, Dad, Mamaw and I. Mamaw and I decided we would go out there and live and work. My mom was so scared we would do it!! We even got applications. I still have mine. 

Stuff

 

Not sure what I did to deserve this, but Toby sat in my lap. Maybe he was cold. 

 

And this felt Christmas vest hanging in the women's locker room at the gym. I think somebody's Mamaw made it in 1964. 

 

I didn't know lichens could bloom!

 

This gorgeous tree. Dad always called it a haw tree. 

 

So pretty. 

The beautiful Trixie under Amy's tree.  

Cold weather and Christmas stuff

 

Just the grandogs spooning 

Frozen fountain one morning

 

A shot of some of the carolers at St. Catherine's. Mom's choir program was so good. 

 

I was trying to do some table arrangements for a client. Pepper had to sample the water. This one was best 

 

Four kinds of greens. Then I forgot to get a pic of finished product. I added little white flowers. 

 

Mary Grace sent this to me and said "how did I get myself into this?".  I completely understood. I used to make special bags every year. 

 

Had a great time at my Circle lunch. 

 

Had an old friend, Libby Walden, come and sing for us. She reminisced about growing up at Broadmeadow. 

 

The annual tree skirt saga continues. The near the tree skirt. 

 

It is not even in the same room.