Christmas Traditions

 

One of my favourite appetizers is France Brie cheese and  Catherine's Red Pepper Jelly on wheat thins. Perfect with your favourite flavoured tea.

Holiday gatherings can be so much fun when everyone pitches in. This year, plan a simpler, saner family holiday: focus on cherished traditions, favorite foods, and special times with the people you love.
This year I went on a christmas house tour featuring 7 homes decorated for the Holidays by local florists and growers. I also went to The Glasshouse garden centre for more ideas & inspiration.
By surrounding yourself with the scents, sounds of christmas carols and visual displays of christmas, you will leave with a sense of peace & spirit of christmas.
A few days later I felt inspired to start my own christmas decorating. I went for a walk in my back yard & snipped various branches from our trees. I collected weeping cyprus, blue spruce, holly branches, red branches & other greenery. I arranged them in urns & made swags for the lamp post & placed a bright festive bow in it for color. It looks fantastic & is a great way to brighten your home for the holidays! Nature offers a soul-soothing refuge from holiday excess. Enjoy winter's beauty!
 
I purchased December's Romantic Homes Magazine and was loving all the pink and white decorations.  Where do you find your Christmas decorating ideas and inspiration?  

Remember:  Jesus is the reason for the Season! 

A Plain & Fancy Christmas

A Plain & Fancy Christmas by Cynthia Keller

A Plain & Fancy Christmas is a story about two very different women who discover they have something shocking in common. That commonality is not that they were born in the same hospital or even that they were delivered by the same doctor — it's that each was sent home with the wrong family.

Thirty years later we meet Rachel Yoder and Ellie Lawrence. Rachel is an Amish widow living with her parents and raising her young daughter in their close-knit farming community in Pennsylvania. She lives a very different life from Ellie, who has one priority — her lucrative career as vice president of a New York-based public relations firm. After the doctor who accidentally switched Rachel and Ellie at birth dies, his wife decides it's time for his terrible secret to come out. She sends a letter to both Rachel and Ellie, explaining what happened, and offering the proof she's kept for three decades. Rachel's plan is to ignore the letter, even though it validates what she's always felt — that she shouldn't have to struggle so hard to lead a proper Amish life. Ellie, on the other hand, is curious about her biological parents. She sends a letter to Rachel, requesting that the two of them meet.

Now Rachel, Ellie, and their entire families must come to terms with a decades-old mistake. And the inevitable heartbreak that mistake will bring. 

Take time out from your busy schedule to enjoy a good book and enjoy some time to relax!