Home Decor Pics (and one food pic!)

Ellen, you were sorely missed at the cookie exchange party. We started with ten, but with two cancellations, we ended up with 8 kinds of cookies. I sent the extras home with the next door neighbor who wanted to come, but because of shoulder surgery really couldn't be baking 10 dozen cookies. So: more than three days of work (not counting the weeks prior of decorating and shopping for supplies) for three hours of company. But well worth it, and a good time was had by all. And this was probably the most stress free party preparation I can ever remember, thanks to all mom's and Tim's help.



Not the best pic, but I put cedar roping and white lights across the fireplace mantel. We so should have had more electrical outlets put in during the basement renovation, but who knew... There's a plug in one of the shelves I could reach with the cord.



I baked thin gingerbread cookies to hang on the tree. Then I dabbed a little cinnamon oil on them. Stand next to the tree, and you smell cinnamon and butter. It adds a nice top note to the perfume of pine and leather smells already in the basement.



How's this for role reversal: I'm still threading cookies on ribbons and hanging straw ornaments on the branches, and mom, who has decorated her own house with 7000 silk poinsettias is saying 'I think that's good, that's enough...'



This smells nice, too. I usually put orange-clove pomander balls somewhere in the house for Christmas, and I leave them there until they start growing penicillin. We found that root bowl marked down to a throw-away price up north in October. Normally they are obscenely expensive, but they were all cracked and split. A little wood putty, and it's quite at home in the Moosewood Lodge.



There's the framed menu. Needless to say we have both fridges crammed with leftover soups and dips. Plenty of bread and all the crackers, too. I guess I always think people are going to eat more crackers and snacks than they do. And there's leftover Nutella fondue, which is just one more thing that is going to bust me out of my clothes. Equal parts heavy cream and Nutella. Pure hot dripping evil.



I tried a caramel-topped Brie. I melted about a cup of sugar until it was amber, tossed in some walnuts, and then poured it over the top of a wheel of Brie, which mom had scraped the top free of rind. Sprinkled on some dried cranberries and served at room temp. But I think next time I would pour on less caramel. It was hard as a helmet. But delicious.