A Snowy Saturday and Taking Pics Around The House

Later today Erik and I will be doing a little Christmas shopping as soon as band practice has concluded, so I spent the morning taking some pictures of Christmas decorations that I will be sharing on December 6 for the Deck The Halls Party that Susan at Between Naps on the Porch will be hosting.

I'm excited! I can't wait to see all the Christmas decor!

We also had our first real snowfall of the season last night, so Erik was outside shoveling the sidewalks. We didn't get a lot of snow, just a few inches, and it's very wet, so he didn't even bother using the snowblower.

I also took some other random pictures while I was photographing the house.

I recently bought this carnival glass reproduction Victorian spooner from Victorian Trading Co.

The spooner is in the shape of an upside down acorn, with a leaf shaped base and a twiggy branch along the side. A spooner was simply a holder for spoons and was typically used for a high tea. Many of the high and middle class Victorians aped the English in their customs, and having callers over for tea was very popular. By the 1880s many American and English hotels began to offer tea service in fancy Tea Rooms and around 1910, afternoon Tea Dances began to be popular as well.

High Tea, sometimes called a 'meat tea', usually is somewhat like a dinner and served typically in the evening with a heavier fare, although here in America, afternoon tea , or low tea, with pastries and other tidbits is often mistakenly called a 'high tea'.

There are three types of low tea: Cream tea, light tea and full tea. Cream tea consists of serving tea and scones witrh jam and clotted cream. A light tea serves tea with scones and sweets like cakes and cookies. A full tea serves tea with scones, sweets, desserts and savories. Savories would include tiny sandwiches and appetizers. Erik and I will be hosting a Christmas Open House on December 18 and we are having a Victorian style full tea for the open house.

I also got this recently from my mother-in-law. I'm not sure it's exact purpose, although I suspect it's meant to be a nut dish or a candy dish. I've often seen pictures of silver nut dishes that have this side-ways kind of opening. I think I'm going to actually use it as a silverware caddy for our full tea on Dec.18.

While I was taking pictures, I spotted Olive watching Erik shovel snow outside. She seemed to know that something was quite different about the world outside her windows.

I took this picture because I thought how pretty the snowy day looked through the sheers. This window I always call the "Secret Window" because it's in such an odd place, right in a corner where two walls of the house converge and it's slightly more narrow than the rest of the windows in the house. It looks out upon our A/C exchangers and my hosta garden. It always makes me think if that story by Stephen King, "Secret Window, Secret Garden" (not the movie, which is quite a bit different, but the actual story.)

And just to give you a sneak peek for the complete house tour which I will be posting on Dec.6 for the Deck the Halls party, here's a couple teaser pics.

Thanks for stopping by!