Happy Holidays!

I've been busy preparing for Christmas among other things and haven't had much inspiration for the blog, but this afternoon as I prepared the table for tomorrow's dinner and finally got the wreath up on the front gate I snapped a few photos.  Hope everyone has a joyous holiday!

 This year's temporary chandelier, Rimfrost pendants that I bought at IKEA a few years ago and had in storage.  More glam than last year's, especially with the tenting.

My new flatware!  I'm trying slowly to acquire all new dishes and serving pieces.  I saw this set on eBay when I was looking for something else and really liked it.  Its similar to the Dirigold Empress pattern, but isn't quite.  In case you can't tell, it's gold toned, but not gaudily so.  Some (all?) of the Dirigold is actually brass.  I'm not completely sure what this is, but it's got a cool mid-Century vibe and it looks lovely on the table.  It's one espresso spoon, and four fancy knives (neither pictured) short of a complete set of eight, so I'll definitely be stalking eBay for a few more pieces.  The coolest part might be that it was actually being sold by someone in Albuquerque, so I didn't have to pay shipping.  That never happens.

 Looking across to the living room.

 Nick, looking slightly blurry.  The dogs hate the camera.

If you look really carefully you can see our Christmas albums.  I took my estate sale turntable in for repair before Christmas, got it back, and found that it still didn't work.  Ugh!  I was so looking forward to playing old cheesy Christmas albums.  Maybe next year.

Once again, Merry Christmas!