It's Beginning to Look Alot Like Christmas

I've been meaning to get these pictures up for a couple weeks, but you know how it is. There are only 24 hours in a day.....

More than half of my pictures didn't turn out (the stockings hung by the chimney with care, among other things), but I can always do those next year. So, here we go - I'm just hitting a few of my favorite things.

I collect cookie jars. Most of them are vintage, but these two Santa's are not (actually, they are Father Christmas jars). They are, however, very special to me. This is a Fitz & Floyd cookie jar. In my opinion, F&F make about the finest quality cookie jars (and other pieces) today. This Woodland Santa is about 10 years old.This is a Mary Englebreit Santa cookie jar sitting atop our vitrine (china cabinet).And speaking of Santa's, the following is a vintage composite Father Christmas that I picked up at an antique store in Galena, Illinois about twelve years ago. I keep him out all year.
One of my favorite Christmas tree ornaments is this one that I have left over from my childhood. It is gold plastic with a sort of angel-hair fiber swirled inside. I have another one in silver (not pictured). Once there were at least a half a dozen of each color (decades ago). I think I inherited four, but only the two remain.

In contrast to the vintage things are the more modern pieces that I believe mix well with the antique sideboard and my few vintage pieces. Isn't that what it's all about anyway - collecting what we like and is beautiful or meaningful to us? The next three pictures show different vignettes that are grouped on our sideboard in the front entry. We recently got rid of our old '80's oak entertainment center and 25-year-old analog TV and bought a digital TV, a credenza for the TV to sit on, a recliner (for us to sit on) and a hutch-style bookcase. Here is an arrangement of florals, sprays and spikes in one of my all-year vases. It usually sits on the hearth, but we're a bit cramped this year with the new furniture and our too-big Christmas tree, LOL. So it sits in a little niche in the living room.

And finally, below is a picture that hangs in the living room. It is a pencil sketch that my son Shane did in high school - it was a copy of a picture he saw in one of our yearly almanacs of a Frenchman sniffing a truffle . A high school art assignment. I just dressed it up slightly with some pale florals.And that's it for now. Thanks for stopping by!