December time...

December is one of my favourite ever months, I like the whole build-up to Christmas more than the event itself! Well, nearly...

We went away for a day and a night to Bath to celebrate our wedding anniversary. I love this city  - I love its Jane Austen-esque streets and its hilly walks. I love the fact that it reminds me of my University days. I love that we have always retreated there as a bit of a bolt-hole, away from things. I love that art galleries mingle with cool one-off individual little shops. I love that time went really slowly when we were there. But most of all, I love that I returned knowing afresh why I married my husband in the first place. I like him. He's good fun :-)

The Circus, Bath...photograph by Mal Bray

I return as well to the final weeks of the school term before my children break up for Christmas. It's a round of choir concerts and Nativity plays, interspersed by moments of quiet reflection about what is on my mind. Once they are around, there are certainly fewer quiet moments and much less opportunity to make life ordered...

In readiness for Christmas, I re-trace all the old traditions, especially the Danish ones in honour of my Scandinavian heritage. The house will soon be adorned with quirky decorations and lots of white candles...

via latte lisa

I've been thinking lately about self confidence. A few reminders of how precarious self confidence and self esteem can be. I watch my children growing up and can see how some actions give confidence but conversely how some take it away. If I could give any gift to them, this would be it. But as a parent, it's actually hard to know how to instill confidence and I wonder sometimes if my methods are too obvious. There is only so many times you can tell a child she is beautiful. Is that ever enough?

Things of Christmas beauty...

So many things of beauty at Christmas time. For me Christmas Eve is all wrapped up in Danish tradition as my little family makes the pilgrimage to my Mum's house for traditional 'Danish dinner'; roast duck stuffed with apples and prunes, caramelised potatoes and red cabbage! It is the absolute taste of a Danish winter for me and it is so deeply rooted in everything I associate with Christmas. And now, as I did as a child, the Boos look forward to it (mainly because they get to open gifts early in accordance with the Danish tradition!)

What does Christmas mean to me? After the weeks of planning, buying, wrapping I do wonder what is it all for? The consumerism of this time of year has bothered me more this year than most. Yet I have participated in it willingly along the way. I long for simpler times but then simultaneously feel so blessed that we have the life we have and can revel in this family time of year, unencumbered with woes.

I lead a happy life; one that I think shows on this blog. My good friends do say I put on the 'Lou show' for the blog and it can border on all-too-perfect. I agree; the reality is never that way but atleast at Christmas time I can believe and just sit back and enjoy the fruits of my labour.

We'll be at home, with family, trying to sleep in on Christmas Day to a sensible time whilst the children wake and feel that unmistakable rustle of paper in stockings at the foot of their bed. There is just nothing like that sound...

Pretty, star-like party dressing...

...the beautiful Cintia Dicker...

Can you hear the bells? We've been reading 'Polar Express' and 'The Night Before Christmas' all week...so exciting.

via it's mary ruffle

via dress, design, decor

Getting out our best china...

Candy canes, brown paper and string...

Winter warming wool...

via for chic sake

Carluccio's panetonne...Italy's finest.

 

Shimmering, sparkling perfection...

...the beautiful Christina Hendricks...

Two faces at the window...the Boos come tonight, I love this painting by Christian Birmingham.

Candle-light and fireside...

Something sparkling and blue under the tree?

Or natural and wholesome; either way...

via crush cul de sac

What can I say? 
Have the happiest of times this Christmas...

be back soon!

Ready for a new year of lovely giveaways...

Danish blue...

Hello Tuesday, my muse today is Danish blue. These beautiful delicate intricacies of cobalt blue painted on white. Every time I see a plate or bowl with this signature pattern I check the base to see if it's Royal Copenhagen - just out of habit! This is what I grew up with; watching the plates being meticulously hand-painted in the studio in central Copenhagen, my Mum would always take me to see.  To me it's so utterly Scandinavian and makes me also remember my Grandmother - my Mormor - whose house was full of curious art and Danish heirlooms mixed amongst the modern furniture. Especially this time of year with the Georg Jensen Christmas decorations; for me it's a slice of childhood nostalgia...

Georg Jensen advent crown

Georg Jensen star

via Space for Inspiration

Royal Copenhagen

Hello again...

Hello again! Had a whistle-stop trip to Copenhagen but managed to cover so much in that time! Plane rides, train rides. A full and happy catch-up from all of my cousins, five years of family updates, a great party (my goodness, they do know how to party...and drink...the Danes). Not very much sleep. brunch, morning walk on Skodsborg beach, house visiting, lunch, more trains, airport shopping. 

All with a hefty dose of nostalgia for the lovely times we had there in the past. It was a pleasure to return and made me wonder why on earth we stayed away for so long? So I left feeling full of whimsy and memories of times when life was as simple as this:

Lovely times...and nothing like family to make you think of what's important in life. So Copenhagen, see you soon... :-)

I'm off...

I do love this and most of the images from Copenhagen Cycle Chic. Great ponytail. I shall be joining the Danes (nation of bike riders) for just a day and half this weekend, so I am off...back soon...'vi ses' as they say there. I don't intend on riding a bike, but I will try for looking chic... ;-)

Me and my Cousins...

'Hip Hip Hurrah! Artists' Party, Skagen' by Danish painter Peder Severin Kroyer (1851-1909)

This weekend we go to Copenhagen for a big family party. My Uncle is turning 60 so the family are gathering to celebrate the occasion. My mother is Danish; I am half Danish. Denmark is in my blood despite never having lived there and (rather shamefully) not being able to speak the language. This resulted in much gesturing and sign-language between my Mormor (Grandma) and I, who lived til she was 94.

I have not been back to Denmark for 5 years. I owe my absence to having children! They do make travel more...how can I say? Cumbersome.

So we have a big family there - I have 10 cousins and a handful of second cousins with whom I grew up. Every family holiday was spent there in pure, clean, Scandinavian loveliness, we had quite simply, the best time. My parents split when I was 8 so my Danish family provided the thread that kept that fabric of familyness together for me.

Back then all my Danish cousins looked something like this...

...or this...


My family live on the outskirts of Copenhagen, my aunt and uncle's house sits on a lake where they can canoe in summer and skate in winter. Everything in Denmark, from my recollection as a child, is beautiful and calm. Everything has been designed as a 'thing of beauty' - fit for its life purpose.

My cousins and I; we climbed trees together as children, we got drunk together as teenagers and as adults, sadly its tailed off abit as we were all reproducing! There are now, as well as the first generation cousins, 8 new babies for me to meet!

This is the Danish Royal family - how chilled out do they look? I mean can you see our Queen Elizabeth sitting on the steps to Buckingham Palace with her grandchildren frolicking in front?


The weather will still be cold in Copenhagen - but it will be a breath of spring air nevertheless to see my family again...