{Mood}: The mood is still very Christmassy in deed, besides that the Sales has started and the rush to the tills has brushed away all the cheer that Christmas has brought for the day, otherwise it’s rush to the tills before and after…. Never mind, my mindset is still with a a very traditional Christmas fairytales: the white snow, the wooden house and the fireplace in a rather Nordic setting……allow me to dream for a few more days….
Photography: Trine Thorsen
Have a wonderful Christmas !
May it be filled with joy and love,
cheer and laughter,
happiness and peace!
Lots of love to you all,
Katxxx
{Dreams}: On to the last page of Dona Nicanora’s Hat Shop and the magic of this amazingly entertaining story is still with me. Dona Nicanora is a women lead by her dreams , ultimately one of owning a hat shop in a small rural village in South America...
Photography copyright: Homes and Antiques magazine
{Original}: I say : ‘Don’t be scared to use your creativity and more importantly reuse, look through your drawers in order to reinvent and personalise your gift-wrapping - DO-IT-YOURSELF - . Recycle materials such as newspaper pages, piece of ribbons, buttons and old trimmings……anything will do, you will be surprised by what can be achieved….’
1.For the down to earth: reuse old packages and bags – decorate with raffia and pencils
2.For the sophisticated one: use fabric with golden sprayed leafs
1.For readers: use recycled newspaper –decorate with hand drawn ribbon
2.For globe-trotters: use old maps - highlight some place of interest for a personalised touch
1.For the vintage passionate: why not using some vintage or recycled tins to place your gifts ?
2.For the easy going: Simple white paper with hand printed personalised message
For the craft lover: decorate a plain bag with yarn and buttons
styling Mara Bottini – photography: di Alessandro Mussolini
For the romantic : glue old boxes with vintage book pages and paper dollies Jeanne d’Arc Leaving
{Inspirations}: make sure you make use of your vintage finds for Christmas, display them around the house and use them to decorate your Christmas table, no better excuse to over-accessorise your house than at Christmas, enjoy!
Photography Copyright : Angelo Garini
{Life}: Nothing better than warmth and comfort these days, a good meal cooked at home and some nice warm tea. Not major project for Christmas so far, just some traditional food shopping including a good oven-baked panettone, a bottle of champagne and other continental delicacies, I suppose with age one prefer quality over quantity and so I am choosing carefully what I am buying. I try badly to avoid the Christmas rush in Central London, although sometimes is unavoidable and so stressful, people are just rushing around with rolls of wrapping paper sticking out from everywhere, but has anybody thought about recycling some of the paper that we already own…?
Photography: Brent Darby
What better than some seasonal foliage to get into the mood for Christmas. I love fir branches combined with traditional red winter berries , it always remind me of when as children me and my brother with my mum would go collecting pungitopo (butcher’s broom) and moss for the presepe to lay out the Nativity figures on. Back then the arranging of the decorations would have created enough excitement to last for at least a week. Firstly the decorations needed to be taken down from the attic for my dad to know that it was time to pop to the nearest vivaio (nursery) to buy a tree. Next, we were allowed to start decorating the tree starting with the lights, after with baubles, that were meticulously wrapped on paper. Finally we would take out the Three Wise Men and the Nativity figures to create a miniature village that resembled a Bethlehem one. It was all so magical and surreal , sometime I would stare at the display for some time, it made me so happy.
{Origins}: So London has woken up to witness a snowy sky, to the surprise of us all, so far it has been the most exciting thing ever, besides of course the arrival of traditional German-style Winter Wonderland and if Christmas is not your thing at all, well, not much else to look forward to. I don’t mind it at all, I love the festive atmosphere that Christmas brings along, but I have to admit I am not a big fan of the artificial excitement that I see around, besides that - there are some things that I will always love about Christmas : the tree, the decorations, the colours and the crafts, but where did it all started?
Christmas Past at the Geffrye Museum
a museum of English homes and gardens -
A visitor to England from France noted the following about how Christmas Day was celebrated in the 1720s:
….the English have many customs we do not know of. They wish each other Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, presents are given, and no one may dispense with this custom. On this festive day churches, the entrances to housed, rooms,kitchens and halls are decked with laurels, rosemary and other greenery.
In this room a small family party is about to take place on Twelfth Night – the 6th of January. Twelfth Night has been celebrated as the end of the Christmas season since the Middle Ages. It combines elements of the Christian feast of Epiphany, the visit of the wise men to the stable at Bethlehem, and the end of the twelve days around the pagan feast of Saturnalia, centred around winter solstice.
From medieval times, the revels have always incorporated elaborates role reversal. Traditionally a King and a Queen are chosen for the night, to lead the proceedings served by the ‘ courtiers’. The King is elected by the discovery of a dried bean in the traditional Twelfth-Night cake, and the Queen by a pea. Because the selection was random, the situation could arise whereby a servant was elected Bean King and was served by his master all night.
This rooms shows a middle-class Victoria drawing room of the 1850. A family gathering is taking place in the evening of Christmas day. The room is dominated by the Christmas tree.
It was during the reign of Queen Victoria that many of our Christmas customs first became widespread especially the practice of decorating a fir tree in the home. It is popular misconception that Prince Albert, Victoria’s consort, was the person who introduced the Christmas tree form Germany, however it probably came to the UK around the end of the 18th century, but had been the practice in Germany since at least the 16th century. Queen Charlotte, the German wife if George III, may have been the first to introduce it to Britain for her your family during the 1780s and 1790s.
It was Prince Albert’s enthusiasm for the customs however, which popularised Christmas three outside the Court circles. The royal family had a Christmas tree at Windsor every year after the couple’s marriage of 1840 which really popularised the customs, when illustrations of the tree, with five of the royal children standing with their parents and grandmother, were published.
In this room a family celebrate Christmas in an artistic manner. Their decorations are inspired by the Aesthetic Movement and its love of all things Japanese. They have decorated branches of twigs with small lanterns, and have also used oriental fans to decorate the room.
The Christmas card, unlike the Christmas tree, was an English invention. In the late 18 century, children would sometimes give their parents written seasonal greetings in order to show their ability at handwriting. However the ‘first’ commercial Christmas card was devised by Sir Henry Cole in 1843.
{Treat}: Having started with a warm cup of coffee, the day had so much more in reserve…The chilly wind outside anticipated the cold weather to come, as forecasted, whereas the disrupted bus journey to Trafalgar Square offered the opportunity to walk before heading into the warmth of the Gallery.
Peyton and Byrne at the National Cafe had plenty on offer and the quick meal provided the energy for what was ahead, with much joy and anticipation, the Canaletto and his rival Exhibition at the National Gallery.
Opening with Canaletto’s (Giovanni Antonio Canal) earliest paintings from the 1720s and presenting his work in roughly chronological order, the exhibition is displayed over six rooms, each room examines the artist’s relationship with one of the major view painters ( Venetian vedute).
After spending a quite enjoyable few hours at the Gallery , Fortnum & Mason was to be the next treat of the day. Walking through the Foodhall almost makes you step back in times, the beautifully displayed merchandise provides plenty of inviting delicacies to choose from. The vicinity to Christmas means that one can make some extraordinary purchases and that’s what I did I treated myself to a bottle of Vintage champagne to drink over Christmas.
It wasn’t just by chance that this year Fortnum & Mason has created its celebrated Christmas windows in partnership with the National Gallery. This incredibly exciting partnership has focused on Fortnum’s interpretation of some of the masterpieces housed at The National Gallery. Winter scenes, still lives, and views of Venice are represented…photos to follow …
