- Like last year around Christmas time, this year we also had some lovely fragrant blooms from our Wintersweet or Chimonanthus praecox (Calycanthus p.) (C. fragrans).
- Therefore I want to share these blossoms and buds with you here...
- The light in our kitchen was just perfect for taking these photos.
- We kept only a few blossoms ourselves and I did deliver a small vase to a dear friend that is recovering from her knee replacement.
- Hope she was able to enjoy them.
- Hope you enjoyed these beautiful winter blooming Chimonanthus praecox (Calycanthus p.) (C. fragrans).
Related article:
Our Garden's Winter Blooms for Christmas (mariettesbacktobasics.blogspot.com)
Last year we did start already the tradition of having a delicious Italian Christmas Eve Dinner at
Ristorante da Maria. Since our family on this side of the ocean consists of only the two of us, that's the very best we can do. It was again a great evening. We enjoyed for about three hours the five-course, elegant Christmas Eve Dinner, cooked by Lady Chef Maria Runggaldier.
Next we went to Church for great organ music with caroling before the actual Midnight Mass. A perfect Christmas Eve for us. Pieter got sick the next day with the flu but right now he's doing much better. For all those living near Macon, Georgia or anywhere near Central Georgia, there is still the option for New Year's Eve to have such delicious five-course dinner. What better ending of the year 2011?! Just to show you how the menu for Christmas Eve looked like, for making you mouth water... Everything on the menu is made from scratch; using the best quality fresh ingredients!
Sure, for both of us having lived and worked near Venice, this is HEAVEN! Maria is from the city of Bolzano, the northern part of Italy and she is quite a Lady Chef!
Guess my readers from Italy will recognize these yummy dishes!
It makes us quite happy and that's why I want to mention Lady Chef Maria here.
By the way, it is her husband Heinz who helps serve her delicious food... Heinz is from Innsbruck, Austria.
Do you also have such a great favorite restaurant nearby?
For Christmas we did have some perfectly white Camellia 'Nuccio's Gem' from our garden. Enough to fill a small vase. Often when it rains hard, they turn brown right away but this time they were perfect. Love to share them with you, as well as a beautiful Crocheted Christmas Angel Ornament that I received from dear blogger friend Olga, who has the blog
Lacy Crochet as well as
Olga's Home and Garden Blog. Just click on the two hyperlinks to visit Olga's great blogs.
- Perfectly crocheted angel ornament by Olga from Lacy Crochet with golden ribbon loop for hanging.
- Used my Christmas place mats with napkin that I've sewn a couple of years back.
- Three Nuccio's Gem Camellias in a vase on the kitchen table.
- The place mats are machine quilted and the borders are done in a decorative DMC metallic gold thread with the Serger.
- The place mat reverses to different fabric with tiny holly leaves.
- Detail of the decorative DMC metallic gold thread stitching.
If you need some Classes from Mariette, 'A Stitch in Time' just holler...
