Category Archives: holidays

What Did Your Mailbox Ever Do To You?

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Here are two new trends in holiday decorating I’ve noticed over the past couple of weeks. One I love and think is an adorable idea. One I don’t understand and wish it would go away.  Let’s start with the cute first. Don’t you think this wreath made out of colorful felt balls is just the best thing ever? Love, love, love! It’s simple and festive and different and reminds me so much of the green construction-paper wreaths my kids used to make in Sunday school with a few felt balls glued on and a sprinkle of red glitter. I’ll bet you’ve got a few of those saved, too! And then, on the right, we have … well … quite frankly, this looks to me as if a whole bunch of ribbon sort of upchucked on an innocent mailbox.  I mean: Why? What’s wrong with one  — ONE — bow? I’m all for exuberance and over-the-top, but this has gone over the top and out the door and onto the curb. And if your mailbox looks just like this, please forgive me. I don’t mean to be critical — well, OK, I guess I do — but I’m seriously disturbed by this trend of decorating mailboxes with so much mesh ribbon that it looks as if they’re being bubble-wrapped for their own protection. If someone can explain this to me, then I’m open to changing my mind. In the Christmas spirit and all. But until then — bah, humbug!!!

It Feels Like Christmas, Just Like Christmas

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This Exhibit A why I’ll never ever ever be an interior decorator and/or marvelous hostess: These photos illustrate the way the holidays are supposed to be done, as opposed to my method of tying a few bows on light fixtures, opening a box of fancy Ritz crackers and hoping for the best. Thankfully, there are people like Mary Katherine Butler, an interior decorator and lover of all things colorful who owns a shop called Kates and Co. in downtown Corinth, Mississippi. She carries the slack for the rest of us … well, slackers. This was the Christmas open house at her shop a few days ago, and it definitely put everybody in a festive spirit. How could it not? I smile just walking into her shop. In the hands of folks who know what they’re doing — like Mary Katherine and several of my good friends — a bunch of stuff on a table turns into something gorgeous and magical. But if I arranged a bunch of stuff on a table, it simply would look like a bunch of stuff on a table. But at least that’s better than a bunch of cat hair, which is what’s usually on our tables. Sigh.

Fall

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Oh you silly people who thought that just because the calendar says “July” we are still in summer. Wrong! It apparently is time to start counting your orange  napkins and trying to remember where you put the box of jack-o-lantern lights and, hey, how long can leftover Halloween candy stay in the freezer anyway? I’d heard rumors that a few craft retailers were in holiday mode already — Christmas truly is in July at Hobby Lobby — but that seems reasonable to me when you’re talking about getting a head start on handcrafting your memories. However, I’m just not sure I’m ready to start shopping for fall decor yet. I mean, I haven’t even worn all my summer clothes yet. Even the employees at this Cracker Barrel seemed embarrassed. “We’ve got some Thanksgiving things over there,” one whispered, grimacing, “and I hear Christmas is coming next week.” Oh, dear. Actually, my main concern is not the ever-earlier starting bell for holiday spending but a deep dismay that fall coming to Cracker Barrel means that the seasonal summer specials soon will be gone and my new favorite breakfast of Blueberry Streusel French Toast will be … well, toast. Have you had this yet? I’m telling you, it’s like the warmest freshest blueberry muffin/doughnut/pancake/pastry/pie ever. Ever. Go get some. Right now. Just please don’t bring back a black-cat coffee mug. Until late September, at least.

Fourth of July

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Because nothing says the Fourth of July like a family get-together at the beach over a long holiday weekend … or a gun show at the peanut festival. And actually I figured out that the gun show isn’t during the peanut festival, which is in November — it’s just at the National Peanut Festival site.  But still. Somehow the combination of peanuts and guns seems … I don’t know … uniquely American? Like you can go munch on peanuts and buy a gun all at the same time. Me, I’ll take instead a comfy chair on the beach-house porch with a sea breeze blowing the clouds along and a fresh cup of French-press coffee or my new favorite drink of ginger wine with club soda and vodka, depending on the time of day. Or night. So here’s hoping your Fourth of July weekend is continuing along nicely. With your choice of peanuts, coffee or ginger-ale wine.

Fourth of July

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Happy July Fourth weekend! Hope everyone has a great time with family and friends and fireworks.

Barbecue

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If your Fourth of July plans call for some barbecue this weekend, I hope it’s as good as this plate of finger-lickin’ goodness I got at Bar-B-Q by Jim in Tupelo, Mississippi, this week.  Now, I am not a barbecue fanatic. I never get up in the morning and say, “I’ve got to have some barbecue today.” But when good barbecue falls in your lap — and anybody who eats with me knows I mean that literally — you cannot refuse. Bar-B-Q by Jim is moist and succulent with a faint woodsy flavor. It’s perfect on its own, but a dribble of the molasses-based sauce makes it even better. The cole slaw is crunchy and crisp and not drowned in mayonnaise, the potato salad is firm and savory and not drowned in mayonnaise and those rolls — light and rich and buttery all at the same time. Thank you, Jim Beane, for making barbecue that even non-barbecue folks like me can love. Go to http://bbqbyjim.com/ for details.

Father’s Day

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These two guys on the left reading the classic “One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish” share not one iota of DNA – but they sure look alike, don’t they? Okay, except maybe for the hair. But they’re both concentrating mightily on their book and I think they even have the same look on their faces, as if they can’t wait to see what happens on the next page. (Spoiler alert: Five fish, six fish, seven fish, more!) My dear husband very very rarely uses the word “step” when he talks about the two daughters he got when he married me six years ago — they are his family and that’s all there is to it. So it tickled him when grandson Capt. Adorable, now 2, was younger and balder and people who didn’t know would say, “Oh, y’all look so much alike!” Sort of like the picture on the right of the Captain and my dad, his great-grandfather, taken when the Captain was only a few months old. He was fascinated with my dad’s watch and would do his best to eat it — and my dad loved every minute of it. Couldn’t get enough Now, Dad takes him on John Deere gator rides and they “talk” tractors. Lucky baby to have such loving men in his life — and that’s not counting his own dad and other grand- and great-grandfathers and uncles and great-uncles. I’m lucky that way, too. And you, also, I bet. Happy Father’s Day!

Shopping

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I really don’t know much about men’s clothes. My husband buys his own and pretty much dresses himself without any help from me — that’s what getting married for the first time at age 47 does to you. Oh, he will occasionally ask fashion questions, but they’re usually along the lines of “Do you think you can sew this button back on?” and “Do I have any more black socks?” So I’m clueless about men’s style. But I’m easily impressed, and this gorgeous display of lavender and blue dress shirts and ties at Dillard’s in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, grabbed my attention this past week. I just wanted to touch all that soft and rich-looking fabric and play around with putting this shirt with that tie or maybe using that one over there. And I got a tiny bit jealous that men can wear what essentially are silky scarves every day. On the other hand, we women usually look better in a dress, so there you go.

Memorial Day

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Welcome, summer! No matter what that silly lunar calendar says, Memorial Day weekend is the beginning of the Fun & Sun season. You’ve got food and drink and friends and family — what else do you need? Usually my outdoor entertaining consists of opening a bag of potato chips and bringing paper plates out to the deck, but folks like my friend Sharon in Huntsville, Alabama, know how to do it right. At a recent gathering in her fabulous backyard, she brought the indoors out with metal serving trays and oversized clear glass candlesticks for statement-making pillar candles decorating the wine buffet — a super idea since I usually think of light-and-disposable for outdoor eating. And, Sharon, I think I need another invitation soon so I can copy be inspired by your great ideas.

Mother’s Day

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I love this book! Younger Daughter gave it to me for Mother’s Day and I laughed all the way through my favorite banana-and-peanut-butter-toast breakfast. Amy Sedaris is a comic genius and her 2006 “I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence” (and, really, isn’t that the best way to offer some?) is the perfect blend of her signature retro humor and actual real recipes. It’s like you stumbled onto your crazy grandmother’s cookbook where she tucked articles on pantyhose crafts and how to make a paperclip necklace in between the pages. I mean, one minute you’re giggling over Sedaris’ advice that children’s parties always should have a time limit, “like, ‘from 2 to 2:30’,” and then you’re salivating over her recipe for “Real Chocolate Cake” and later still you’re pondering the command to look radiant when you open the door to your party guests — “It should appear as though you’ve used witchcraft.” Luckily, Sedaris gives us all the non-witchcraft help you need to be a thoughtful and serene hostess, secure in the fact that you’re covered for every entertaining emergency, even serving lunch to a lumberjack. Because you just never know. If you don’t have a wonderful child who gifted you this book for Mother’s Day, go out and buy it for yourself. And if you want to read it with a peanut-butter-and-banana-toast sandwich like I did, go here, https://cathylwood.wordpress.com/2009/01/05/healthy-eating/, for our recipe.