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Rosie’sFrenchAdventuresandIrish Shenanigans.com

~ Letting ‘Life’ show me the way.

Rosie’sFrenchAdventuresandIrish Shenanigans.com

Tag Archives: Christmas decorations

Looking Forward to Decorating My New Home For Christmas 2021. But Until Then…….

25 Friday Dec 2020

Posted by RosieJoseph in Change is a coming, My home, poignancy, Simple things

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

Christmas decorations, Christmas garlands, Christmas in France, Happiness, Love, Reflections, Simple things, Small things

Wiglet Photobombing Harley Christmas 2020

For me the best part of Christmas has been putting the Christmas decorations up. This year, due to our big move that’s not possible, so thought I would share some from the past 5 years.

Christmas 2017 Two Trees That Year
The Only Real Tree We Ever Had 2017 The Year Tom First Came To Visit
Mt Dickensian Garland Christmas 2017
Christmas: It’s Good To Be Home
Our Last Christmas 2019
Nothing Decorates Like Nature December 2015. Our First Christmas In France The View From Our Bedroom Window
December 2015
December 2016 The Hoarfrost Literally Blew Me Away. It Was Like Walking In Narnia
Our Home Made Deco Christmas 2018
Christmas 2018
Christmas Garland 2019
Twenty Years Old and Will Be Up Next Year In Ireland

And finally some photos of that fabulous Hoar frost, what a privilege it was to experience that phenomenon.

Mellow Christmas Folks

Rosie

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Le Soiree part II: It all went well

14 Saturday Dec 2019

Posted by RosieJoseph in a sense of community, Food in France, Friends, laughter & giggles, My home, People, Recipes, The continuing adventure

≈ 9 Comments

Tags

canapés, chilling, Christmas decorations, Christmas in France, cucumbers, embroidery, Friends, gifting, good times, Relaxing, salmon and fish eggs, sparkling wine, taking time, vintage Karen Millen

We had a lovely evening, just as everyone predicted we would. Our French friends loved our decorations and how we had arranged our house. It is common here to sit at a table rather than comfy seating, and when they saw a little seating area in the window, where we sit so often looking out at the view they were enamoured.

I made canapés with a lovely tuna ready made mix that I found in a local supermarket (good old Aldi) I added some fish eggs and cucumber and the women of our group loved it. Cucumber is not often served here and I explained that in the UK it is very popular.Nadia and Martine loved it but Marc and Michelle were mot so keen. But the tuna was very popular, I was chuffed when they asked where to buy it.

The other plate is canapés of cream cheese, salmon and fish eggs, again very popular. But the most popular were good old cheddar cheese and silver-skin onions on cocktail sticks. So seventies!

I also did a few canapés Anglais, with cream cheese and marmite all for our friend Virginie, she and I have decided that she has English blood as she loves all English food.

When I moved over here I brought with me some expensive beautiful clothes, you know the type: you ones you always aim to get back in to one day! But over the past few months I have let so much go, and realised they were too beautiful to languish in my cupboards. Last night I showed them to Nadia and asked if she would like them. Bless her she tried them on and looked stunning. I rescued my Karen Millen vintage jacket from the wardrobe and she loved it.

I would rather give such beautiful things to a lovely person such as her than sell them to people who will want them for nothing. I am so pleased she liked them, it made my night.

I love our friends, we had an evening of sparkling wine and whiskey (traditionally French), good chat snd lots of laughs as always. It reminded me again that I shouldn’t let the language get to me, I can speak some French, and when with good friends language no barrier. I am not ready to leave yet.

I am tired now, and allowing myself a weekend off. Why Not? My house is sparkling, so here is to an afternoon of embroidery and writing. Perfect.

Rosie

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All things that twinkle

07 Saturday Dec 2019

Posted by RosieJoseph in My home, Simple things, The adventures of living life in the French countryside, The continuing adventure, The seasons

≈ 15 Comments

Tags

apples, artistic, catching the light, cherubs, Christmas, Christmas decorations, Christmas design, Christmas garlands, Christmas tree, crystals, garlands, OCD, red and crystal, Simple things, sparkles, twinkling lights, Vintage French furniture

Anyone that knows me will tell you that I love things that catch the light, and things that twinkle and sparkle. I was a magpie in another life!

When we lived in England and we had careers that afforded us to buy non essentials every year I would be down the Christmas decoration aisle of any shop like a jack rabbit! So over the years I gleaned quite a collection.

Then we tried branching out into handmade and now I have those to add to my collection.

I used to love Christmas but now, not so much (the reasons behind that for another blog). But I do still love putting my Christmas decorations up.

Because of my extensive collection I can change the design every year from all crystal last year to an introduction of red this year. I enjoy it. In fact it is my biggest enjoyment of the season.

With the addition of my French Antique Buffet (from a French charity shop for silly silly money) in my living room I have been able to go mad with garlands, the addition of the vintage and my collection of cherubs and I am in my element. Next year it will be painted white and will be quite stunning.

Poor RD once finished I then sit looking at the tree instead if the TV, and constantly get up and rearrange it. Just my little bit of OCD.

Small things.

Rosie

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The beauty and poignancy of Christmas decorations, my favourite part of Christmas

19 Tuesday Dec 2017

Posted by RosieJoseph in My home, Reflections, The continuing adventure

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Christmas decorations, Christmas garland, Christmas lights, christmas memories, Christmas tree, Countryside, Dickensian, First Christmas, Glow, Inspire memories, Inspired, Lamplight, Miss Haversham, poignant memories, Professional christmas decorator, Seaside, Single parent, Sparkle, Star, The hobbit, Wolverhampton

Ever since I was a child I have loved decorating the Christmas tree. My mum (God bless her soul) would bring out our white artificial tree (so 60’s and 70’s, but back in vogue now) and all our old deco’s accumulated over the years. The vivid green elf with his red hat, grinning maniacally it looked like something from a horror film!! The carefully wrapped long glass baubles with gold inside (probably worth a fortune now, as so vintage).

My favourite, however, was the fairy. My mum had improvised one year, got one of our tiny dolls and dressed her in a dress made of pink loo roll (with the tube from the middle stuffed up her skirt to ‘give it volume!) Then we sprayed her with gold and sprinkled glitter over her and then, just to add to her indignity, stuck her on top of the tree with the tree stuck up her arse!!!

Every year that doll came back out, had different coloured loo roll put on her, depending on the fashionable colour of the time; and each year she was sprayed with glitter paint, silver, gold again, bronze one year, she looked like she had spent the summer holdaying in Bermuda!!! But I was hooked, I loved Christmas decorations.

As the years wore on my decorations have become more subtle, but I have never been one for those sterile trees, where all the baubles are the same, round and all one colour, like the types you see in shopping centres; for me they are soulless. When I first left home I bough some expensive decorations, and this year thirty two years later, I have used them again. They bring back memories of when I first left home and moved to Wolverhampton, or a small village nearby, of the lovely old neighbours I had, of the excitement I had of decorating my own tree.

From then on I bought decorations every year. Anyone who knows me will tell you I love things that glitter and sparkle, that ‘catch the light’ they mesmorize me. So over the years I have accumulated a lot. I progressed to garlands and they became more and more elaborate. I would have frost themed garlands, with colours of the sea when I lived by the seaside in England, or garlands laden with fruit decorations (very Georgian).

So this year my surroundings and circumstances have influenced me again. With the colours of the surrounding countryside, and the cold; the fact that our house is damp and drafty and over 200 years old, I was inspired to make up a Dickensian garland. It has berries, and deep red flowers, cherubs, and iced ivy leaves, with poinsetta running through it. There is a sparkling icicle garland that I picked up somewhere over the years, and the beautiful vintage candleabra that my lovely Mother in Law gave me, covered in crystal droplets. It just makes me think of Miss Haversham, sitting at her Wedding feast, where the ivy has grown i to the room and it is covered in cobwebs.

 

Since living here Rich has always wanted a real tree (which are inexpensive in France) and a dear friend gave us a gift of money so I finally relented and we bought one. My garland inspired me to carry on the idea and I got out my beautiful red and gold ribbons and threaded them through the tree ..

 then I added all the red and gold baubles that I have not used for years (I tend to be a silver type of girl, it sparkles more!) I added to that some of the hundred or more crystal droplets I had also accumulated and now I love it. (Although I have to confess that the first ginpme I did it I had a few wines and was doung it in the dark! Add to that just as I finished a set of lights right in the middle went out and I added some over the top! Mmmmmmmmmm……..when I got up the next day it looked like someone had thrown things at it!!! So I took it all apart and redid it!)

As I hung the baubles I remembered the lovely purple glass one had been brought from Woolworths, now long gone, in Herne Bay

The gold round glittery ones, bought from Beatties Department Store in Wolverhampton, sadly also now long gone. The ribbons were inspired by my beautiful Edwardian House in Herne Bay, now a holiday home. The sparkling red baubles that glittered on the tree when my son and I snuggled up together as I read him ‘The Hobbit’ by lamplight. I was a single parent then with electric on a meter, so we had a blanket over us as we sat by our red shaded lamp and the lights of the tree twinkled, and it is a memory that will live with me forever.

Even the star is the first star I bought thirty two years ago, again from Woolworths, God I miss that place, and I miss my mum, who was with me at the time.

i look at the garland and remember going late night shopping with my mum when I found the iced ivy garland, now on my fireplace in France; and I think of my mum, who is no longer here. Or the garland on top of my armoir, simple with greenery (good old Woolies again) and silver stars, which were bought in France when Rich and I came over the first Christmas after our wedding. God! Little did we know then what we would endure, only to come out stronger the other side (but you will need to read my book for that story!)

The artificial black tree, smothered in crystals, including a crystal garland, and white decorations, makes me smile because I think of the little kitten that is Diddyman who would climb up into it, because after all she matched it’s theme! She was the kitten that helped to save Rich and I, and she would peek out at us from the foliage, and make us laugh.tDaryl and Tom

 

Someone said to me this week that I had missed my vocation, i should have been a professinal Christmas Decoration dresser, or window dresser. They are probably right they do inspire me. But what is important to me is that Christmas decorations should inspire memories, and create memeories for the future. So that when people, or a time, or places are gone we remember them and they make us smile.

This year our dear friend and her puppy are coming to stay, and my son, who I have not seen or hugged for three years is also coming with her. It will be especially memory making because his birthday is on Christmas Eve, and because you never know what life holds for you I intend to cherish every moment.

I urge you all to do the same.

 

Moisy

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