Holiday Tables and Holiday Treats

My family has always been one to sit for hours around the table. We eat and chat and laugh and drink for hours and hours, until a sore tush or the realization of the late time pulls us away.
These holidays were packed full of long sits at beautiful tables, adorned with delicious treats. Here are a few of my favorite photos from this year's Holiday Tables and Holiday Treats.

I hope your holidays brought you delicious treats and long evenings with loved ones.

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Sugar and Spice Candied Nuts

This Holiday the plan was to keep gifting simple and I would say that for the most part I was successful and really enjoyed thinking about, making and gifting simple gifts. One of those gifts that have been placed in the hands of almost everyone we have visited this season came from one of my favorite food blogs, Smitten Kitchen!

Her recipe for Sugar and Spice candied nuts is so easy and delicious I have already made about 5 batches. Each has been packaged in small jars and sealed them with a simple label that I have printed out on sticky paper. All in all they take me about 1 hour to make, package and run out the door with about 5 full jars ready to gift and a few extras pieces to enjoy myself!

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Baby its cold

The chill of winter has finally hit and baby its cold outside. The kind of cold that makes you feel like all the clothes you just layered on are an illusion. Despite the chill and warmth of our cozy home, Mr. S and I decided to bundle up and enjoy the frosty bite yesterday! We got as far as the local theater where we watched "Where the Wild Things Are" with about 50 really sweet and funny kids, and then headed down one of our favorite streets for some antique shopping. Along the way we came across this overflowing fire hydrant that only made us shiver more. Brrrr....

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A perfect Day - board games and hot drinks

Christmas was perfect. An amazing blur of hugging, eating, laughing, eating, opening, eating, driving and being together with the people we love most, while eating!
Two days ago, when the full on family celebrating stopped, I came back from out of town to spend time with two of my longest and loveliest friends (B and S) and B's family to relax and do something we excel at - drinking warm drinks and playing board games!

Our board game of choice is Settlers of Catan, a game I am sure I will never win but love playing.
And to change it up a little this time, we also dabbled in Headbanz, which also turned out to be surprisingly good. Who knew that guessing your card read 'Satellite Dish" could be so darn hard!!

Aside from my over consumption of caffeine that resulted in hyperactive conversation, it was a perfect day topped off with a stunning meal (as always at B's home) and dozing off in front of the movie Paper Hearts.

More holiday updates coming soon...it was just too nice not to share!

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Happy Holidays!

I hope that the Holidays are just how you wish them to be!
Ours are packed full of family, good food and whole lot of reasons to be so appreciative.
Happy Holidays to you and yours from me and mine.

xo. L.

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DIY Christmas Crackers

Every year our Christmas table is decorated with delicious food, overflowing wine glasses and a Christmas cracker laid carefully at each person place.
Every year we wait until the main course is done and then carefully pull out the cracker (the thing that makes the noise), cross arms and pull them all at the same time as this makes for the biggest BANG!
And every year my mom sniffs the sulphur from the bang of her cracker and looks hopefully for the "T" puzzle inside her cracker, an old 3 piece puzzle that use to be a Christmas cracker classic.

This year we will do exactly the same thing again, except this time my mom will find the "T" puzzle, because I volunteered to make the crackers this year and made sure hers has this puzzle safely tucked inside.

Recycled newspaper, Hats borrowed from old Christmas crackers and a few good jokes I found on the internet - here is a quick DIY of my Christmas Crackers!

Supplies:
Crackers (things that go bang)
Paper hats
Paper for outside of the cracker
stiff paper for the roll inside the cracker
Corny Jokes
Gift - T Puzzle, little toy, scratch and win tickets...

- Cut the stiff paper to approximately 3 inches wide and 6 inches long - roll and secure with a tab of hot glue
- Fill this roll with your treats - hat, joke, gift and slide the cracker through so it is centered in the roll
- Cover the roll in your outside paper - secure with hot glue
- Tie up the ends with ribbon and be sure you can still reach either end of the cracker!
- Enjoy your homemade Christmas Cracker!

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Welcome! Bonjour!

Thanks to some lovely bloggers, tweeters and internet folks who have shared photos of my DIY Christmas Tree, we have lots of new visitors here at Tara and Thyme! So, a big welcome to all of you and thanks for stopping by. Please leave a message, ask a question or just enjoy browsing around.

xo. L

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Bagged!

Yesterday I completed a full day sewing marathon at the Workroom getting all of these little Tote Bags finished up for Christmas gifts. It was so nice working away surrounded by the buzz of Holiday shoppers, hum and sewing machines and of course, all of the lovely workroom ladies.

The pattern for the bags is a modified version of the Quilt as Your Go Tote class I took at the Workroom and is the perfect way to use up fabric scraps that are piling up in our home!

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Not a great day for Mrs. Claus

At some point in the evening yesterday, while the rest of us enjoyed a Christmas party hosted by my parents, Mrs. Claus and our family dog had a little scuffle. Aside from some fluff stuck in her teeth, our dog got away fairly unharmed. Mrs. Claus on the other hand was not quite as lucky.

This Mrs. Claus has been a staple in our family Christmas decorations for over thirty years and was made by my Ma along with a sweet little Santa. Everyone is feeling a little tense as clearly Mrs. Claus is going to need to go in for some work - a full head replacement, skirt mending and new hair just to start. And really, the timing couldn't be any worse for poor Mrs. Claus with Christmas less then a week away, a husband who is over weight and looking to pack on more this week and a list of gifts to wrap a million pages long!

Fortunately, thanks to her Jolly spirit, Mrs. Claus is able to see the bright side - a facelift, a more modern hair do and a few days to relax and refresh before revealing her new look to the family on Christmas.

Fixing Mrs. Claus has just been added to my sewing list, the list that was not supposed to exist this year...but who can say no to sweet Mrs. Claus. Not me!

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My Desk

Far too many days ago, I was tagged by Karyn to show off my desk/work space!
Every time I would stop to take the photo, my desk didn't really look like it's true self, so the photo shoot kept getting postponed. This morning I woke up and settled into work, which is my home, which is located at our dining room table, and my desk seemed to be in the perfect shape to capture how I work!

The Things on my Desk:

• My laptop is pretty much my blackberry, personal assistant and life companion in one - we are never far apart
• Big Love is my new obsession and some how these days I manage to squeeze in at least one episode. I am in the middle of Season 2 and am having some anxiety that one day there will be no more episodes to watch..
• Two Cell Phones, one for personal calls and one for work calls. The work phone is a Virgin phone and truly has some of the most annoying functions, beeps and noises an electronic device has ever made. As a result, we avoid it when possible and use the amazing and affordable skype.
  

• Bret the Hitman Hart mug. Turns out the Hitman is a fan of Mr. S's band and came to his last show with a bunch of Hitman souvenirs. I drink my coffee out of this mug every day - "Best there is, Best there was, Best there ever will be!"
• Pink Felt with "sprinkles" - these are the start to this years cat toy Christmas gifts. I will hopefully finish and post about these soon!
• With the goal firmly set that this would be a relatively no sew Christmas, Mr. S and I are working on books for our friends' kids - the Sketch is Mr. S's mock up of how it might look!

I showed you mine so now it is time for you to show me yours - I tag Liza, Johanna and Concha to show us their desks!

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Our Christmas Tree DIY - A photo essay

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Our Christmas Tree

Recycled wood and copper pipe, a star made from the siding of an old barn, a gold leaf garland and laser cut decorations; our Christmas tree.


...I will post the 'how to' soon!

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Our Advent Calendar

Mr. S and I have spent many holidays together and have started some amazing traditions, however somehow an advent calendar has never become one of them. As a kid, the simple grocery store chocolate version was always a highlight of the season for me - a small piece of chocolate in a holiday shape never tasted better.
It seemed like this year was the perfect time to reignite this tradition, however I wanted something as simple as my childhood memory. Having skimmed the blogger-world, which is packed full of some amazing advent ideas, I settled on something cheap and cheerful. 25 envelopes in our holiday colors, each filled by Mr. S and I on alternate days with a treat, gift or sweet note.

Hard to believe there are only 17 envelopes left to open and 17 short days left to finish our holiday gifts!


Ps. Tomorrow I will be debuting our Christmas tree!!

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Sandy Christmas

Despite their best efforts to bring about a festive warmth to this desert state through the blasting of Christmas music, over the top decorations and even a fully dressed and very authentic looking santa, Papa J and I never felt it. We agreed that the long Canadian winters were an easy compromise for the warmth of a snowy Christmas.

It's so good to be home.

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Comin' Home

Today is our last day in vegas before we board a red eye flight home. It has been jaw dropping, beautiful and totally overstimulating. A perfect few days away with Papa J.

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