Happy St. Nicholas Day, 2019

And a happy St. Nicholas Day! December 6th is the name day or birthday of the saint said to be the source of our Saint Nick and therefore Santa Claus. 

Born in the 3rd century, Nicholas spent his life giving away his inherited wealth to help those in need... and the gift giving tradition continues today...although Saint Nicholas gave year round, not just at Christmas...good idea, huh???

And wishing you a happy Christmas season with snow, carolers and all good things!

English Ironstone Tablewares... or EIT Carolers plate from the 1980s

Stir Up Sunday! Time To Start The Christmas Pudding!

Happy Stir Up Sunday!

Traditionally the day when good housewives...or their cooks... stirred up the dish that would become Christmas Pudding on that festive day coming soon!

The tradition dates... as best as can be seen... from the 14th century. There are traditionally supposed to be 13 ingredients... 1 each for Jesus and the 12 disciples.

Stir Up Sunday refers to the traditional day to start it... the first Sunday before Advent, or the coming of Christ's birth begins.

The  collect for the Sunday before Advent in the Church of England's Book of Common Prayer begins with the words 

"Stir up, we beseech thee, O Lord, the wills of thy faithful people; that they, plenteously bringing forth the fruit of good works...". 

This led to the custom of preparing Christmas puddings on that day which became known as Stir Up Sunday.

 The tradition is that for good look in the coming year to fall on the family, every member had to take their turn stirring, and make a wish...

There also developed in the early Victorian era the mixing in of small silver fortune telling tokens in the wealthier families, or a sixpence or two in the more simple puddings. 

The sixpence or threepence for luck or wealth

a wishbone for a granted wish

a boot for travel

a thimble either for thrift or for spinsterhood if recipient was an unmarried lady

an anchor for a safe voyage or safe harbor

a bell for married in the year

horseshoe for luck

and several others that vary by region.

Whatever, you always have to be careful eating, so no teeth are broken.

Sets are handed down in the family. As my husband was a 4th child and a boy to boot, the oldest sister got them, and they are now with their oldest daughter.

My family also passed them to an oldest daughter,  but they were lost about 30 years ago. Sigh...

There is a bit of a debate between calling this steamed pudding or plum pudding...some say the same, just varied by ingredients, some staunch if favor of one or the other...

But all agreed it is dense, full of fruit and steamed.

Also debated, is whether it should be topped with brandy sauce, hard sauce or brandy butter... and whether to be flaming or no...

how nice to have choices! 

I was brought up brandy butter sauce...

Here are several great websites and recipes 

From Downton Abbey Cooks:

https://downtonabbeycooks.com/recipe/traditional-christmas-plum-pudding/

From The National Trust:

https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/recipes/christmas-pudding

From BBC Food:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/christmas_pudding_41498

 

 Greeting card featuring a Christmas pudding with a face... from 1880. British Library

Final Days! Ends Wednesday night Nov. 27th! Time Was Antiques https://www.timewasantiques.net

Ho Ho Ho! Santa Mug Seasons Greetings and Celestial Seasonings Teas

Hello and welcome to a Tuesday Cuppa Tea which I am joining with Antiques And Teacups.

The top of the china cabinet is decorated with a swag I did a few years ago and is adorned with a German Dresden paper star angel announcing the birth of Jesus.

 But Santa, or Father Christmas is coming soon. I pulled out another of our Dunoon mugs from the Season's Greetings series by Richard Partis that features the jolly old elf himself! This isn't a teacup, but when it's cold my Honey likes a mug and not a teacup...and of course that's fine with me!

Pretty cute, isn't it? And isn't he jolly! What a long list! For more info on the mug at Time Was Antiques, click on the photos. 

The perfect mug for a cup of seasonal teas. Here are 2 of our favorite Celestial Seasons this year. I favor the Sugar Cookie Sleigh Ride and my Honey likes the  Gingerbread Spice best!

 I can sit with a cup of tea while going through some of my seasonal books. One of my favorites is The Ritz Book Of Christmas which I picked up at the Ritz Hotel when we were there one year during the Christmas season and stopped for afternoon tea in the Palm Court. The book has Christmas lore and traditions, history of the Ritz and it's tea tradition and some marvelous recipes. I am sharing a simple one I like for Fruit And Nut Clusters.

 Fruit And Nut Clusters

"Red and green are the classic Christmas colours and the decoration od red and green glace cherries on these delicious little chocolates carries on the theme. They look enchanting in individual gold or silver sweet cases, if you can get hold of them, but failing that, pack them into a gold or silver box tied up with red and green ribbon."

The recipe has both metric and cup measures, but I give only the cup measures here.

4 squares semi sweet chocolate, broken into small pieces

1 tbs light honey

3/4 cup mixed dried fruit

1/2 cup chopped nuts like almonds, hazelnuts, walnuts

red and green glace cherries for decoration

Place the chocolate and the honey in a bowl, then either stand this over a pan of hot water until the chocolate has melted, or put into a microwave on low power for 2 minutes. Remove from heat. Stir in the fruit and nuts until they are well coated with chocolate. Drop teaspoonfuls of the mixture onto waxed paper or parchment. Press a small piece of glace cherry into the top of each piece and leave in a cool place until set. 

For a fun tour of Christmas at Windsor Castle, here is a link from The Royal Collection Trust about the festivities there with a video at the bottom of the page:   HERE

 

Lastly, most of you will have already seen this, but here is the latest picture of little Prince George, son of William and Catherine, Duke & Duchess of Cambridge.

 

I am joining Sandi at Rose Chintz Cottage for her Christmas Tea and Ruth at Antiques And Teacups for Tuesday Cuppa Tea.   Have a wonderful day visiting the other blog parties. And have a cuppa tea with a friend!

Teacup Thursday, Spode Christmas Tree, American Annual Of Art 1978

Hello and happy December 1st. Didn't that sneak up on us? It did me. But the outside lights are up and the tree is up but not all decorated. Will find the Christmas CDs & videos in the closet and...Bob's your uncle!

For Teacup Thursday with Miss Spenser's blog and Vintage Thingie Thursday with Coloradolady, I have chosen a prennial favorite of mine...Christmas Tree by Spode, which has been being made for about 30 years now. It is really a classic pattern, and so nostalgic. Unfortunatly it is no longer made in the UK, which is a shame. But... There are different versions with and without green trim and mark differences. This set was made in the UK in the 1970s. Cool! I love the little sprigs of mistletoe!

For more info on the Spode Christmas Tree teacup at Time Was Antiques, click on the photos.

When I was a kindergarten teacher in the 1970s I worked with a woman from the mid west who introduced me to the American Annual Of Literature And Art which was produced by the Augsburg Publishing House in Minneapolis, Minn. The first annual was published in 1931. I don't think it is still published, but I have a few I get out annually at Christmas. This is the 1978 edition. It is a large size paperback, and I had difficulty photographing it, but here are a few of the pages and articles:

 There are stories, poems, music manuscripts and art works in various media. One of the annual features I love is a story  or narrative of the people in a small town in the Victorian era through the first World War leading up to Christmas with all sorts of fun vignettes, snippets of lore and custom and the cutest drawings. Wonderful!

Then there is always a full page contemporary...to the date of publication...art work relating to the nativity. This is the one for 1979 by Richard Huele:

Have a wonderful day visiting the teacup and vintage thingies...and Christmas is coming!
 

Queen Elizabeth II 2010 Christmas message at Hampton Court Palace

I just realized I had forgotten to post the link to Queen Elizabeth II's Christmas 2010 message on The Royal Channel on YouTube. We both shed a tear. She is speaking from Hampton Court Palace just outside on London, which is a wonderful place in itself. The queen looks lovely for 82. Blessings, our Liz!


Christmas 2010 Queen Elizabeth II

Merry Christmas To All

The Sunday before Christmas....time to wish everyone Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and a wonderful holiday time. We are going to a local production of Scrooge this afternoon....the musical version of Dicken's A Christmas Carol. My favorite>>>We'll probably sing along with all the songs!

Merry Christmas from Time Was Antiques, Antiques At Time Was and Antiques And Teacups

Happy Day After Thanksgiving

Happy day after Thanksgiving. I hope it was a good day for everyone. We have so much to be thankful for here in the USA.
It's so easy to forget that when we focus on the negatives to the exclusion of the positives.

And just because it's the day AFTER Thanksgiving...here is a set of Christmas wreath vintage jewelry to remind you how close the holidays are. I LOVE Christmas, and I love vintage jewelry so this is great. The set of pin and earrings is from the 1950s and has seed pearls and hand painting. Cool.

For more info, here is the link to the item on Time Was Antiques.

We are going to a Growers Market indoor event today...need some organic potatoes. Have a great weekend and remember our 15% off sale ends on the 30th.
Time Was Antiques at http://www.timewasantiques.net

Antique Postcards Great Decorating Accents For Christmas

Antique postcards are a great way to add an unusual and nostalgic decorating accent or nostalgic theme to your holiday decorating this year.

Time Was Antiques has Christmas postcards from the 1890s through the 1930s that can be used to decorate your Christmas tree, table tops on stands, inter mix with your cards in a display, stuck in the corners of a mirror or added to a bulletin board. A postcard can be added to a small picture frame and be a part of a table top of shelf display as well.

Postcards were the greeting cards of their era and have some great victorian and edwardian designs. Their snow scenes, poems and greetings speak of another age. It is so fun to read the greetings to family and friends, and look at the addresses.

Postcards are also a very affordable collectible, which in this day and age is nothing to be sneezed at! So think about adding a bit of nostalgia to your decorating this year with a few antique postcards added to your design plans!

To see our current Christmas post card inventory, (which has FREE shipping) visit this clickable link to our Postcards For Christmas category at Time Was Antiques.

Fall continues here in the Northwest. It got down to the low 30s last night. Clear night with stars. Was up early with a sick cat. Sigh....Our cat, who is 14, is like a kid so we are not happy campers at the moment. She's had to be put on thyroid medicine...who knew???

Oh well. Have a great weekend. Some Christmas arts & crafts shows on in town today so that'll be fun! Start the season with some holiday cheer. Have fun!

Antiques On Sale Nov. 26-Dec 2nd

It's 40 degrees, we're supposed to have snow showers are there's still turkey to be creative with! Life is good!

Hope you all had a fabulous Thanksgiving and spent some time being thankful for the many things in our lives that we take for granted the rest of the year like friends, family, health, food. clothing and shelter, and for living in a country that allows us the freedom to think, believe and even spout off about our agreements or disagreements freely without fear of punishment or jail time. I for one am VERY thankful for that.

Time Was Antiques weekly Sale Before Christmas, from Nov.26-Dec 2nd, is 10% off on all antiques. So, if it's more than 100 years old, made before 1906, it's 10% off at :

http://timewasantiques.net.

So come and browse and find that perfect Christmas or holiday gift. The photo here is of a gorgeous Wedgwood jasperware biscuit barrel made between 1880-1891. In perfect condition and a great gift!

Have a great day. I'm off the church, brunch and then some time working on our new niche site Antiques And Teacups while my honey watches football.

Ruth