Happy New Year to you all! Please forgive the paucity of posts over the last few weeks but as you might recall, I've been busy entertaining overseas house guests for the holidays. We've all had a marvelous, fun-filled time but all good things eventually come to an end. As such, we bid adieu to our guests at the airport this past Thursday with promises of a reunion over the next year.
Now that things have once again settled down at home, I've had an opportunity to fondly reflect upon the last few weeks. As with so many others, an awful lot of celebratory feasting took place (between bouts of playing tour guide). Perhaps that would explain my quickly expanding waistline. Anyway, the culinary indulgences kicked off on Christmas Eve and continued right up through New Year's Day.
And, what's Christmas Day without some postprandial entertainment to shake one from one's torpor? Eschewing a time-honored game or two of charades, furniture was instead pushed towards the drawing room walls, the music cranked up, and voila! a makeshift dance floor revealed itself. Our guests and we managed to pull off all of our best moves, mastered long ago in some of Europe's finest discotheques during heady summer holidays. We had an absolute blast!
Boxing Day and the days that followed were spent showing our guests some of the area's best places of interest. A day in wine country wound up in the quaint town of Sonoma with a lovely dinner at The Swiss Hotel.
A little window shopping in San Francisco's Union Square is always a fun diversion for out-of-town visitors. On the evening we were there, the shops were buzzing with post-Christmas sales activity.
One of the last excursions of the year was spent pleasantly cruising down the coast to Santa Cruz and admiring the spectacular views.
Our last dinner of 2017 was enjoyed at home in our very own dining room. And, just to remind ourselves we were rapidly headed into a new year, I made sure to mark the occasion as follows:
Of course, there were sweet treats too, including a King's Cake, baked in a crown mold, complete with lucky charm.
We barely made it to midnight and into 2018 without nodding off, a feat which becomes a little more challenging, I have observed, as one ages. The dawn of a new year is, however, such a thrilling moment especially when one begins to ponder the possibilities and opportunities which may lay ahead. I haven't missed one yet!
With the understandably slow (and late) start to the first day of the year, we took things in our stride and hopped into the motor car for a gentle drive up to some of the Gold Country towns of Northern California. Most of the towns were deserted but it was nonetheless a lovely treat to wander around in relative tranquility. The highlight of our day was the year's first sunset which had us pulling off to the side of a country lane and enjoying a truly spectacular sky.
Christmas in our household is well and truly over on January 6, the Twelfth Day of Christmas, or Epiphany. This is the day we dismantle the tree andattempt to pack away the ornaments. I counted two hundred and thirty-two of them on our evergreen tree this year, not including the topper. There are more on the goose feather tree. And, as I predicted, the ornaments are still laying about, cluttering up the dining room table. A beautiful mess if there ever was one.
I do hope that you too found plenty to celebrate during the festive season. Please do tell me what some of your highlights were.
Now that things have once again settled down at home, I've had an opportunity to fondly reflect upon the last few weeks. As with so many others, an awful lot of celebratory feasting took place (between bouts of playing tour guide). Perhaps that would explain my quickly expanding waistline. Anyway, the culinary indulgences kicked off on Christmas Eve and continued right up through New Year's Day.
I was up early on Christmas morning and glimpsed the colorful sunrise from the balcony
Photo: Chronica Domus
No Christmas dinner table is complete in Britain without a novelty Christmas Cracker at each place setting to add to the merrymaking ...
Photo: Chronica Domus
... and a scrumptiously dense, booze-soaked, fruit-filled traditional Christmas cake
(this one was lovingly made by my dear mother months in advance to allow the flavors sufficient time to mature)
Photo: Chronica Domus
Here's what the table looked like right before we sat down to tuck into our Christmas feast ...
Photo: Chronica Domus
... and here's the grand finale, a traditional Christmas Pudding, topped with holly ...
Photo: Chronica Domus
... and set ablaze with a liberal dousing of brandy
Photo: Chronica Domus
And, what's Christmas Day without some postprandial entertainment to shake one from one's torpor? Eschewing a time-honored game or two of charades, furniture was instead pushed towards the drawing room walls, the music cranked up, and voila! a makeshift dance floor revealed itself. Our guests and we managed to pull off all of our best moves, mastered long ago in some of Europe's finest discotheques during heady summer holidays. We had an absolute blast!
The drawing room, after our spontaneous Christmas evening dance party had concluded - who needs extravagant disco lights when fairy lights will do!
Photo: Chronica Domus
Boxing Day and the days that followed were spent showing our guests some of the area's best places of interest. A day in wine country wound up in the quaint town of Sonoma with a lovely dinner at The Swiss Hotel.
A corner view of Sonoma's charming town plaza
Photo: Chronica Domus
Sonoma's City Hall and surrounding trees aglow in festive lights
Photo: Chronica Domus
A little window shopping in San Francisco's Union Square is always a fun diversion for out-of-town visitors. On the evening we were there, the shops were buzzing with post-Christmas sales activity.
The madness that is Union Square during the post-Christmas sales
Photo: Chronica Domus
An enchanting gingerbread concoction displayed in the St. Francis Hotel's lobby on Union Square
Photo: Chronica Domus
Everything here is made of sugar including beribboned packages and elves that march up
and down the gingerbread castle's staircase
Photo: Chronica Domus
One of the last excursions of the year was spent pleasantly cruising down the coast to Santa Cruz and admiring the spectacular views.
Photo: Chronica Domus
I adore walks along the beach, whichever coastline I am lucky to find myself upon
Photo: Chronica Domus
Our last dinner of 2017 was enjoyed at home in our very own dining room. And, just to remind ourselves we were rapidly headed into a new year, I made sure to mark the occasion as follows:
A homemade mushroom and leek pie to herald in the new year
Photo: Chronica Domus
Of course, there were sweet treats too, including a King's Cake, baked in a crown mold, complete with lucky charm.
New Year's Eve desserts included juicy tangerines, a Kings Cake with a hidden lucky charm,
and the Christmas fruit cake baked by my mother
Photo: Chronica Domus
That was a tasty bit of cake!
Photo: Chronica Domus
Another lit fire to keep us cozy until the midnight festivities began
Photo: Chronica Donmus
We barely made it to midnight and into 2018 without nodding off, a feat which becomes a little more challenging, I have observed, as one ages. The dawn of a new year is, however, such a thrilling moment especially when one begins to ponder the possibilities and opportunities which may lay ahead. I haven't missed one yet!
The scene from our balcony, with the smokey remnants of distant fireworks ushering in 2018
Photo: Chronica Domus
Photo: Chronica Domus
The morning after the night before
Photo: Chronica Domus
With the understandably slow (and late) start to the first day of the year, we took things in our stride and hopped into the motor car for a gentle drive up to some of the Gold Country towns of Northern California. Most of the towns were deserted but it was nonetheless a lovely treat to wander around in relative tranquility. The highlight of our day was the year's first sunset which had us pulling off to the side of a country lane and enjoying a truly spectacular sky.
I could almost hear Vivien Leigh uttering those famous words "As God is my witness"
Photo: Chronica Domus
Christmas in our household is well and truly over on January 6, the Twelfth Day of Christmas, or Epiphany. This is the day we dismantle the tree and
The prospect of packing all this away calls for a stiff drink!
Photo: Chronica Domus
I do hope that you too found plenty to celebrate during the festive season. Please do tell me what some of your highlights were.
Hello CD, Happy New Year to you and your family! You obviously know how to treat your guests well, and provide all the traditional touches. How can you keep a cake for months? My mother is lucky if her baked goods last until they cool down from the oven--I admit I am usually the chief offender.
ReplyDelete--Jim
Happy New Year to you too, Jim!
DeleteYour question about the cake keeping for months is a good one. That is the secret of insuring a traditionally dense, British Christmas fruit-filled cake is ever going to taste good. Wedding cakes are made of a similar recipe and the tradition, long ago, was to keep the top layer until the Christening of your first child and serve it to guests then. Believe me, although this does sound strange, the older the cake, the better it tastes. I think the alcohol the fruit is soaked in, and all the natural sugars from those fruits have something to do with it. Conventional cakes, as you pointed out, don't stand a chance in our household, or yours too by the sounds of things.
Dear CD,
ReplyDeleteWhat a festive and delicious holiday! My late father always loved a good Christmas pudding complete with hard sauce and yours aflame with brandy made quite a statement. I noticed you have your spoons bowl face down on your dining table. Is that the European/British style?
After a fun week in NYC, we spent Christmas and New Years at home with lots of comfort food. It helped us to weather two weeks of bone chilling cold unprecedented in a century plus the notorious "bomb cyclone" storm last week. Our pipes froze in the sub zero temps and Bostonians asked themselves "why do we still live here?"
Fortunately, we can expect warmer weather this week. It is a balmy 27 today ( fully 20 degrees warmer than yesterday). Our pipes thawed out thanks to space heaters.
And the days are getting longer. Have a happy and healthy new year.
Best,
KL Gaylin
Hello KL Gaylin,
DeleteI was fortunate to have snapped the camera at the precise moment the pudding was aglow. We tried it twice as our guest accidentally left the flash of his own camera switched on which bleached out the blue flame. Got it in the end though.
How lucky you got to visit NYC before the bone-chilling weather settled in. I had forgotten all about frozen pipes until reading your comment (remember those well when I lived in the UK, specifically Kent). Not too long now until the thaw so keep warm huddled up at home.
Happy New Year to you!
PS: Forgot to address your question about the spoons (and forks too, by the way). The antique silver set I used is French and as such, the monogram and pattern appear on the backside of the cutlery. So, setting the table with it flipped it is the correct way of doing things. I make an exception to this rule when the plates I am using have a busy pattern of their own (or a monogram). In this instance I would set the forks and spoons in the more conventional manner, the same way the English and Americans do it. To my eye, this prevents the table from looking too busy if that makes any sense to you at all. I do hope so.
DeleteDear CD,
ReplyDeleteYour photos are wonderful! Especially the ones of your beautiful dining table. Love seeing the new chest of drawers in the background. Also, Bravo to your mother on that fruitcake - inspires me to try making something like that for next year. Happy New Year!
Hello Stephanie Bell,
DeleteThrilled you enjoyed the photographs, although I worried I might have overdone it with the amount I included in this post.
Oh, do please give fruit cake making a go. You have plenty of time left to find a good recipe for the December festivities. Don't forget to make it well in advance so that all of that booze has time to work itself into the piles of fruit that make a good cake a standout one.
Happy New Year to you!
It looks like you had a beautiful and busy holiday. And that cake! Your mother is a talent, well I can see your skills in the kitchen and home have their source. So lovely that you had family staying with you too.
ReplyDeleteWell done on the dance party, nothing is more fun.
A stiff drink, and perhaps a bit of music should help with putting away those precious ornaments.
The best thing about Christmas is that it all comes around again! Happy New Year to you and your family CD. xx
Hello Dani,
DeleteMy mother will be thrilled when I relay to her that one of my cherished commenters described her as "a talent". Of course, I am biased and would absolutely agree with you on that score. Not only did the cake look marvelous, it tasted just delish!
I'm actually always a little sad to pack away the beautiful glass ornaments that embellish our tree. Well, at least that is the way I feel at the beginning of the long and laborious process. By the time I'm done with all the boxes and piles of tissue paper, I really don't want to see them again for another twelve months!
Happy New Year to you!
Interesting . . . I wrap as I pack . . . take off, wrap in tissue, put in box . . . repeat! But what a display they make on the dining room table!
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure why I'm unknown -- I'm Martha from Lines from Lnderhof!
DeleteHello Martha, and thank you for your comment and for the clarification of who the mystery "unknown" is. I'm not sure what's going on with that little issue but I welcome all to comment no matter their "handle".
DeleteAlso, you are a wise woman nipping the packing up of the ornaments in the bud. I too wrap each of the fragile glass ornaments in tissue before storing them away in their boxes but it sure takes a lot more time than shoving them all in together. The plainer balls are not the issue. It is all the delicate indents, pine cones and geometric ones that slow me down.
DeleteYour Christmas table was just elegant...and the cakes look yummy, too! So glad you enjoyed your holiday and Happy New Year! Susan
ReplyDeleteThank you kindly, Susan. Those cakes were indeed a treat, especially the traditional fruit-filled Christmas cake that my mother had baked for us. Now, if only I could convince my American-born husband to enjoy it as much as I do. Perhaps fruit cakes are an acquired taste?
DeleteHappy New Year to you!
Gosh you have a cosy home and dinners!!! i just had chicken on xmas but Millie liked it well enough :)) Happy new year CD
ReplyDeleteThere's nothing a good canine companion enjoys more than chicken. Well, maybe a walk after perhaps.
DeleteHappy New Year to you, Naomi!
Everything is so beautiful! Sounds like a wonderful holiday. All the best for the new year! Xx
ReplyDeleteThank you, Jen. We truly had a wonderful time of it.
DeleteHappy New Year to you!
So very pretty! I bet your guests had a fantastic visit. Happy New Year!
ReplyDeleteHere's a story to make you laugh. We tried having crackers this year, but there was no "crack." When we pulled the ends we simply ripped them in half, and essentially flung the gummy bears inside at each other. Not quite what we had planned, but we couldn't help but "crack up."
Happy New Year to you too, Lisa!
DeleteSo sorry to hear about your non-crack crackers. I've mastered the secret after many years, and that is to make sure you firmly grip those ends with both hands before attempting any pulling. Only then will one get that satisfying "snap". I do hope your crackers contained a typically punny British joke and of course, a paper crown which makes everyone look festive (and silly). Such fun!