Thursday Teacups And Tea Things, Angels And Vintage Santa

Welcome to Thursday Teacups And Tea Things! The last before Christmas Sigh...It has certainly come quickly! I am also joining Vintage Thingie Thursday with Coloradolady and Teacup Thursday with Miss Spenser.

My teacup is actually a mug! A vintage Santa mug...thumbs up for hot chocolate, as far as I'm concerned! The mug is from 1979 and I think it is so cute! It is such a jolly old elf...Just the way I've always pictured Santa. But the way Santa is hoisting a mug, and the mug says Cheers! I have a feeling he's tippling something a bit more potent than hot chocolate.  The other evening we were at a friend's party with eggnog...made of eggnog ice cream, whipping cream, milk, freshly grated nutmeg and a choice of a kick or not. It was the BEST eggnog I have ever tasted...even without the kick. Absolutely addictive...not to mention highly caloric!

 Another vintage item is this Hammersley bell from 1971 with the curest metallic gold angels. I think it is so cute...and has a sweet, heavenly sound as well. The words inside the bell say:

When you mee ring,

I'll sweetly sing 

And also on the vintage angel theme, heres a vintage English tea towel we found in Gloucester a couple of years ago:

 

 The tea towel was originally made in 1980 as a fund raiser for a charity. I think it is so cute and so representative of the 1980s. Around the towel are words from the Christmas carol Deck The Halls. To see more of the mug or tea towel at Time Was Antiques, click on the photos.

And a last little mushroom church from my mantle decorations. I love them! It's hard to believe they are really made from fungus, but....

Have a wonderful day with the other blog parties and a very Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

Thursday Teacups And Tea Things, Poinsettia Pitcher, Rocking Horse Teacup

A a wonderful Thursday morning in the week before Christmas! It's Thursday Teacup And Tea Things! I am also joining Vintage Thingie Thursday with Coloradolady and Teacup Thursday with Miss Spenser.

I think the design of this little cup and saucer is so cute! Like a Swedish wooden horse turned into a folk art rocking horse for Christmas. The design isn't English but I really like it! The teacup was made in the late 1980s.  

To go with it, I have this cool 1960s ceramic pitcher with a molded poinsettia design. Talk about making a statement! It is so bright and cheery...not to say eye popping as far as the color contrast is!

At one time I had a whole set including salt & pepper, cream and sugar etc. That was a vintage Christmas table! To see more info about the teacup or pitcher at Time Was Antiques click on the photos.

And here are a couple of ornaments from my tree, made from dough from the 1980s. We used to visit Ashland, Oregon, home of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival for the plays. There was the Lithia craft market on Calle Guanajuato along Ashland Creek where I got these from an artisan. I have treasured them since!  These were made from a walnut shell with a little critter having a snooze inside. I have some magnets on the fridge as well, and that year guess what everyone got for Christmas???!!!

Well, I hope you are getting ready for the holiday. We attended a Christmas party yesterday and have another this evening. Busy, busy, busy! But what a wonderful time of the year!  Take some time to visit the other great blog parties!

Thursday Teacups And Tea Things, Miss Read Christmas Tales Dunoon Christmas Mug

Hi there. It's Thursday Teacups And Tea Things. Thanks for joining me. I am also joining Teacup Thursday with Miss Spenser and Vintage Thingie Thursday with Coloradolady.

I love Christmas mugs...at times I have had 20 or more around the house, but tend to give them away with goodies for my tea drinking friends. But we stocked Dunoon mugs in our antique & tea items shop for years, because we loved the quality. I'm drinking my morning cuppa in one at the moment, but I'll share that one another day. ANYWAY, I recently found this one. The mug is by a favorite Dunoon artist Sue Scullard and goes back to 2001. But the design is so cute. I love the framed windows with all the Christmas goodies inside!  So this is my teacup for today.

To see more of this mug or other Christmas china or Dunoon mugs, click on the photos.

If you have followed my blog for long, you will know that I love Miss Read, the pseudonym of a teacher who wrote a large series of books about several small, rural schools in the small villages in the Cotswolds, England spanning the end of Queen Victoria's reign to World War II. They are a joy and a wonderful window into, really, a vanished England, the one related to my by my family and my husband and his family. The England they knew which is very hard to find now.

Although there are Christmas sections in many of her books, she did 2 exclusively Christmas themed books. This one, Christmas Tales,  was published in 1995. I read it every year. It is 2 stories in one book. Village Christmas which is the story of a baby born in the small village of Fairacre to a new family having difficulty fitting in with old fashioned village ways, and the child's impact on the village.

The other story is called The Christmas Mouse and is about a small boy runaway and his encounter with an elderly spinster at Christmas and other village situations and nostalgic looks back to another century and customs. The book...as all Miss Read stories are...charming, touching and uplifting. The illustrations are wonderful.

It's the sort of book that is part of my annual Christmas reading list. I sit with a lovely Christmas cup of tea in a Christmas mug and just indulge in the pleasure of good literature about the season. Ahh....what can be better???

 

Mister Linky's Magical Widgets -- Thumb-Linky widget will appear right here!
This preview will disappear when the widget is displayed on your site.
For best results, use HTML mode to edit this section of the post.

Thursday Teacups, Stir Up Sunday, Plum Pudding

Welcome to Thursday Teacups and Tea Things with Antiques And Teacups, Vintage Thingie Thursday with Coloradolady and Teacup Thursday with Miss Spenser.

I am covering a few fun things today...all in one! The first, is my teacup selection which is a homey (if your a Yank) or homely (for the Brits) Johnson Brothers, England Friendly Village cup and saucer from the 1950s.

Friendly Village is one of the most popular of Johnson Brothers' patterns in the USA. It appeals to our collective memories of rural village scenes of the east coast or colonial days. I think it is perfect for the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday. I love that there are so many different scenes in the set including the schoolhouse, the old well, apple orchard, ice house and may others. The design is hand colored on brown transferware so it is perfect for many fall table options. I love it!

For more Friendly Village pieces including the cup and saucer at Time Was Antiques, click on the photos and go to the Johnson Brothers category.

In Victorian England, this weekend would be Stir Up Sunday...when the plum puddings and Christmas cakes would be made up to be drenched in spirits and then stored to age and marinate! In the lore of the puddings, varoius silver charms and a sixpence would be stirred in as well, to be used to tell fortunes on Christmas day when the cake was cut and eaten. 

 I even have a plum pudding teapot made by Price Kensington, England in the 1930-1940s.

Wishes were also made as each family member took their turn with the required stir of the pudding. The person stirring would close their eyes and wish, but don't tell!! Or the wish wouldn't come true! I loved these customs as a child, but especially loved licking the bowl!

 Here is a plum pudding recipe from the famous Victorian cook, Mrs. Beeton:

 

Mrs Beeton's Traditional Christmas Plum Pudding 1

Recipe 1 (Page 494) - 1923 Edition

Makes 2 Christmas puddings

Check recipe for shopping/store cupboard purposes and grease 2 basins.

8 oz moist sugar (use soft brown )

8 oz chopped suet or modern day equivalent

8 oz sultanas cleaned

8 oz raisins halved and stoned (see footnote*)

4 oz currants washed and dried

4 oz shredded mixed candied peel - Cut your own or use ready cut

4 oz of plain flour

4 oz breadcrumbs

2 oz almonds blanched and shredded

the grated rind of a 1 lemon

3 eggs

a salt spoonful of  nutmeg grated

half a teaspoon of salt

quarter pint of milk

1 small wineglassful of brandy (optional)

Mix all the dry ingredients together, stir in the well beaten eggs, milk and brandy (if used).
Turn the mixture into 2 well greased basins, and steam from 5 to 6 hours.
Time 5 to 6 hours.
Sufficient for 8 or 9 persons.
N.B. Please note that no raising agent is mentioned in this recipe, but the flour must be plain flour, as elsewhere self raising flour is mentioned by type when used.

I also found this Chocolate Plum Pudding recipe which is a bit different from AllRecipes.com.

 Chocolate Plum Pudding Cake

Prep Time:
25 Min

Cook Time:
1 Hr 20 Min

Ready In:
1 Hr 45 Min

 
Original Recipe Yield 1 - 9 inch tube cake

 

Ingredients

• 2/3 cup raisins
• 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup whole wheat flour
• 1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 3/4 cup butter, softened
• 1 1/2 cups white sugar
• 3 eggs
• 2 cups applesauce
• 1/2 cup coarsely chopped walnuts

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Place raisins in a small saucepan, and cover with boiling water. Soak for 5 minutes, then drain. Grease and flour a 9 inch tube pan.
2. Sift together the all-purpose flour, whole wheat flour, cocoa, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Set aside.
3. In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Blend in the eggs, then the applesauce. Beat in the flour mixture. Stir in raisins and walnuts. Spread batter evenly into prepared tube pan.
4. Bake in preheated oven for 80 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center of cake comes out clean. Let cool in pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack and cool completely; chill.

This is an 1805 caricature or political carton by J. S. Gillray showing William Pitt and Napoleon carving a plum pudding which represented the world. This was the era of the Napoleonic Wars and the Regency in England. Plum pudding was a well understood thing in every household!


Have a great Thursday visiting the other blog parties. And don't forget to make a wish! And don't tell!

 

Thursday Teacups Shelley English Lakes and Butter Paddles for Vintage Thingies

Happy Thursday! I am joining Antiques And Teacups for Thursday Teacups and Things and Coloradolady for Vintage Thingie Thursday and Teacup Thursday with Miss Spenser.

I love landscape teacups, so this is one of my favorites. The design is called English lakes and it was made by Shelley China, England between 1954-1966 when the company closed.

The lake district is a gorgeous place, and well worth a visit if you haven't been there. I think the teacup design captures it so well!

It also made me think of what to share for Vintage Thingie Thursday. There are a lot of cows in the lake district, so here is a pair of butter paddles I brought home from a buying trip to England. I always think they are so fun when I find them. They are also called butter hands. They were used to incorporate, mix and form butter into slabs, large pats or molds so that the butter would not be warmed by your own hands. They made the work much quicker and much more efficient than doing the job with your bare hands.  They are usually in maple or another fine grained wood, but I have had an ornate pair of Victorian era walnut ones that were quite posh!

To see more info about the Shelley English Lakes teacup or the butter paddles at Time Was Antiques, click on the photos.

Have a great Thursday vising the teacups and Thingies, and don't forget to have a cup of tea with a friend.

Cheers!

King George VI Coronation Cup And Saucer 1937

Hi there! It's Thursday Teacups and Tea Things again. Today I am also sharing with Vintage Thingie Thursday with Coloradolady.

This is a cup and saucer made for the coronation in 1937 of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth of England, parents of Queen Elizabeth II and the King from the King's Speech movie with Colin Firth. The maker of this teacup is a little known maker called Morley Fox who only existed between 1932-1944. I love the great profiles with the cipher on the back. So bright and cheerful!

I love British Royal memorabilia because of the history behind it...and it's my heritage! I am a first generation Yank from a Leicester family and I married a Brit who emigrated to the USA in 1972 from another Midlands area, Lady Wood outside Stratford-on-Avon.

This is a handkerchief my grandmother gave me from the coronation in 1937 which she watched from the street. I had it framed years ago and it hangs on the wall of the bedroom.

To see more info about the George VI coronation teacup at Time Was Antiques, click on the photos.

Have a great time visiting the other blog parties and keep dry! We have had rain all evening and will tomorrow as well. But it IS the Pacific Northwest!