Nostalgic scenes of a country village all decked out for Christmas; David Carter Brown has done it again.

Each of the four salad plates highlights one area of the street that comprises the original artwork. And such a lovely, heartwarming street it is! Take me to that fictional world – I want to celebrate Christmas there.

Shopping at the General Store…

Posting parcels or picking up mail from the Post Office…

Shopping for antiques whilst listening to the carollers…

Or visiting the Inn after a ride in the horse and sleigh. I’m up for all of it!

I had a great time styling the table. Paisley linens in grey, green and red tones from HomeGoods provided a lively base.

Galvanized chargers from Pottery Barn, and wine coloured Martillodinner plates from Pier 1 (discontinued) framed the plates, echoing the deep red and grey in the scenes.

Clear Trestle glasses by Fitz & Floyd were hefty enough to hold their own with all the pattern going on.

As always with David Carter Brown’s work, the details are exquisite. There is plenty of visual interest on every plate to keep one fascinated for years.

Rustic Twig flatware from World Market coordinated nicely.

HomeGoods furnished the rustic cottages and Pier 1 stepped up with the LED-lighted small cabin ornaments. 

The little house and church salt & pepper was from eBay.

The red Riena lanterns are from Pier 1 this year. The red shade is very rich, and I was very taken with the detail on the corners of the glass sides of the lanterns.

I love the way the little cottage ornaments light up with LED bulbs. Pier 1 did a marvellous job with them.

Doesn’t the setting just make you want to draw up a chair and settle in for an evening with friends?

Two weeks to Christmas. I’ve been baking up a storm. I took a Pumpkin Cake with brown-butter cream cheese icing, garnished with candied pecans, pumpkin seeds and crystallized ginger to a friend’s house for dinner on Saturday night. And yesterday I started down the decorated sugar cookies path, after having learned a marvellous new method for rolling out the dough. Thank heaven for the blogging community that passes on great tips. No more messy flour everywhere!  I’ll post both of those later this week.

Glenn is making great progress on the playhouse under the stairs. The unfinished space has existed for years, but we just never got to finishing it while Lauren was still at home and young enough to enjoy it. The next generation has provided an impetus. The five little girls (six years down to 18 months) are the perfect age, so now is the time.

The previous owners installed a door into the space, which we plan to cut into a Dutch door

Glenn framed in a little set of shelves for storing small kitchen items before cladding the wall in bead board.

We debated whether or not to frame in the back of the stairs, and decided that we would. There are all kinds of cute ideas for turning the risers of the steps into book shelves, but we figured there were too many sharp angles for little heads to whack against (as Glenn can attest – ouch!). 

Stay tuned! Lots more pictures to come as we get closer.

I’m sharing this post with Between Naps on the Porch.