Christmas

Christmas is Coming!

Sarah James-Wallace

B3FB709B-203D-40EA-81AB-3258253C7EA4 “Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat, please put a penny in the old man’s hat. If you haven’t got a penny, a ha’penny will do, if you haven’t got a ha’penny, then God bless you”. I love the version of this song by Harry Belafonte and could listen to it on repeat over and over! Christmas is indeed coming and I’m ready to embrace it in all its exciting glory!  I’m definitely not one of those people who roll their eyes when the first early signs of Christmas start to appear.

In the lead up to my favourite day of the year I’m going to share the details of some of our past Christmas celebrations, beginning with Christmas last year. Each year, in consultation with the rest of the family I choose a theme to plan the event. I love working with themes and particularly enjoy tying all the little details together. Usually the theme extends to the table, the tree, the gift wrapping, and sometimes even to the food. The theme may simply be certain colours or icons and is usually inspired by things I see or read throughout the year.

Christmas last year was on the farm in Newdegate. The theme was Christmas trees and I was excited to be able to extend it to the food as well! I enjoyed making the traditional French Christmas cakes shaped like logs (Bûche de Noël). They look spectacular and are easier to make than you may imagine. We devoured these as part of our Christmas Eve meal.

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I’d admired these Nutella Christmas trees on the internet for a while and it was a special treat to make one for Christmas morning breakfast. These are very easy and fun to make with the kids. The link to the recipe I used is here.

Last, but not least, I used fresh pine needles to make a cocktail for Christmas night. The picture on the left is of the pine needles I collected marinating in gin and the one on the right is of the completed cocktail. I’ve put the recipe (adapted from The Cocktail Guy : Infusions, Distillations and Innovative Combinations by Rich Woods) below in case you want to try it. It was delicious and really creates a talking point!

Pine Infused Espresso Gin and Tonic

200g pine needles, washed

700ml gin

1 tbsp sugar syrup

Tonic water

Single shot of espresso, cooled

1. Make the pine needle gin by placing the needles in the gin in a glass or ceramic bottle or container with a lid. Leave covered for a minimum of 24 hours.

2. Once infused strain the gin and place in a bottle in the fridge until required.

3. Make a sugar syrup by bringing equal parts of sugar and water to the boil, stirring until the sugar is dissolved. Cool and store in the fridge until required.

4. To make each cocktail, place a shot of the pine needle gin and the tablespoon of sugar syrup in the base of a glass and add a handful of ice. Top up the glass with tonic water to three quarters full and stir to combine. Add a sprig of pine to the glass and tip the espresso shot over the top. Enjoy with friends!

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All the trees of the field shall clap their hands Isaiah 55:12

I’ll leave you with a photo of the beautiful Christmas Eve sunset on Holland’s Track Farm viewed through one of the quintessential Australian trees, the sheoak. Creation in all its glory getting ready to celebrate the very special day to follow.

In my next post I’ll share all the details of the table decor. Do you love Christmas and using themes for decorating? Or do you like to go with the flow and take it as it comes?

 

 

 

Life Musings

Friends . . .

Sarah James-Wallace

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I recently spent the weekend with some of my oldest and dearest friends from boarding school. I went to boarding school at the age of twelve as there were not any high schools near Hollands Track Farm in Newdegate where I grew up. Boarding school is not for the faint hearted, but it does certainly build resilience and forge  deep friendships which endure a lifetime.

The “girls weekend” is an annual event and very keenly anticipated. There is something cathartic about just being able to be yourself with friends who have journeyed with you throughout those often turbulent, troubled adolescent years. You don’t have to pretend to be someone you’re not, because these friends have seen you as you really are, warts and all and certainly know what you are not!

It is very relaxing just to be able to be yourself and the shared history of common experience lets you operate on a deeper level. There’s a lot to say, but I also love the easy silences these girls create for me.

Friendships such as these are some of life’s richest blessings. As CS Lewis wrote: “Friendship is born at the moment when one person says to another : “What! You too? I thought I was the only one.”

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Recipes

Mulberries . . .

Sarah James-Wallace

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It’s mulberry season in sunny Geraldton. These trees grow like weeds here and reward us with lots and lots of fruit (so much that it’s a little overwhelming). The main reason I planted one, was for my kids to have the joy of climbing and eating and the fun of deep purple stained mouths and hands. Happily, the stains wash out easily in the wash with no extra soaking or stain removal required. I also just discovered that the stains come out of the carpet easily by dabbing them with a little vinegar.

What to do with all the excess fruit? There are only so many mulberry pies you can make (even if they are delicious), so I went on a hunt for another recipe which I’ll share below. I’ve adapted it from a recipe I found in Notebook magazine a few years back.

Mulberry Mousse

500g mulberries (stems removed)

1tsp grated orange rind

1tbs lemon juice

1/4 cup caster sugar

250ml thickened cream

250g mascarpone

1tbs Cointreau

1. Reserve 4 mulberries for a garnish. Place remaining mulberries, orange rind, lemon juice, sugar and 1tbs of water in a saucepan. Cook over medium heat, stirring until the sugar dissolves. Reduce heat and simmer for another 8-10 minutes until the fruit has broken down.

2. Transfer the mulberry mixture to a blender or food processor and blend until smooth. Set aside to cool.

3. Whisk together the cream, mascarpone and cointreau until firm peaks form and then carefully fold through the cooled mulberry mixture (you may like to sieve this first if you require a smoother texture).

4. Place mixture in four pretty glasses and refrigerate until chilled. Top each mousse with a mulberry and a dusting of icing sugar. Serve with a small shortbread biscuit on the side.

Serves 4.

Easy and delicious! Are you a mulberry lover?

 

Kid’s Parties

Breakfast Party Invitations

Sarah James-Wallace

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I accidentally omitted the invitation details from my last blog post about Portia’s Breakfast Party, so here they are!

I really wanted to do something creative for the invite, with little individual boxes of cereal (with a decorated luggage label attached with the party details on it).  However, believe it or not, the boxes were discontinued and replaced with packets only four months prior to the party! I couldn’t find them anywhere for love or money.

So, instead of using the boxes, Portia created an invite on her iPad, which we placed in an envelope with the cereal packet tied on top with some bakers twine. We topped it off with a bamboo spoon inserted through a doughnut printable from Oh Happy Day. The girls loved them – easy, but cute!

Kid’s Parties

Breakfast Party

Sarah James-Wallace

50532B20-6452-4F12-A347-DF02C3819558 Recently we celebrated Portia’s thirteenth birthday with a breakfast party. She loves breakfast food, so this was a fun idea and quite simple to put together. Portia also loves pastels, so I used this for the styling theme.

On the menu was bacon, three types of breakfast cereals (the sugary kind usually forbidden in our house), waffles with maple syrup, whipped cream, berries, choc chips and chocolate, caramel and blueberry sauces for toppings. There was also a DIY station to make smoothie bowls with lots of different toppings. The smoothie contained frozen cherries, bananas and coconut yoghurt blended up together. The girls had a lot of fun making their own concoctions.

For drinks, we had two different kinds of homemade lemonade infused with crushed strawberries and puréed watermelon and mint respectively. I was excited to find the recipe for the cake on the Sugar and Sparrow website (link here). It’s a milk and cereal cake containing crushed cereal, icing made with cereal infused milk and topped off with a milk splash. What could be more appropriate for a breakfast party!

B6BE10E7-6AC8-4C2A-9A8F-BFF103D25AC6 I love the styling aspect of a party, as each time I get to use some ideas from my Pinterest board. This time my girls and I painted some jars on the inside with pretty pastel colours to use as vases. I also enjoyed making a hanging flower wall as a backdrop with some washi tape. Both were very simple projects which looked effective.

For the table I used a white tablecloth as a base, overlayed with a pastel vintage tablecloth I found in an op shop. Target had some lovely pastel paper plates, cups and napkins, which I combined with some of my mismatched collection of vintage china. I reused some doilies I had dyed for the Mad Hatter Teaparty for the centre of the table, along with some tea lights. The roses were from my garden.

This was the most grownup I had ever seen this peer group at a party (I guess they really are young adults now)!  Instead of tearing about the place they were happy to chat, make some milk bath (recipe here) and play scattergories and twister. All too soon the party was over and it was time for the girls to go home. The party bags were a labour of love this time! I sewed each one using this great tutorial. I hadn’t put in any zips since home economics at school, so I was really pleased with how they turned out!

Do you love to eat breakfast foods at any time of the day like we do?

DIY

Father’s Day DIY

Sarah James-Wallace

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Father’s Day is almost here, so I’m sharing something I made recently for my Dad. I gave him his present early (when I travelled down to the farm to see my new niece), as sadly we won’t be seeing each other on Father’s Day.

I found the oil drum pictured above at a recent antique fair held in Geraldton. I snapped it up, as I knew it would be something Dad would appreciate for his collection of oil and petrol paraphernalia. Once I got it home I started pondering how I could value add to the gift. I finally settled on the idea of making a cushion to sit on top, so Dad could use it as a seat when working in the shed on the farm.

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Here it is in all its glory in the shed and here’s how I made it! I used some oilcloth I had at home for the cushion as I needed it to be durable and easily cleaned. I folded the oilcloth with right sides together and used a large circular object as a template (in this case a pizza stone) to cut out the cushion. Next, it was just a matter of sewing around the circle on my sewing machine (the oilcloth was surprisingly easy to sew through) and turning it right side out. The cushion was then stuffed with fibrefill and I hand stitched the opening closed. So easy, and I was really pleased with how it turned out! Most circular cushions need notches cutting into the seam allowances before turning the right way out. Not so here, as I was in too much danger of cutting right through the seam on the thick fabric.

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I think Dad loved his present! In fact, a war erupted between Mum and Dad as to where it was going to be kept. Mum wanted it at the house as a stool at the front door for putting on boots, but hopefully Dad got to keep it in the shed. Looks like another is needed for Mother’s Day!

DIY

Making Mittens

Sarah James-Wallace

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In the recent school holidays we embarked on an exciting trip to Tasmania. Usually we opt for an “escape the winter” holiday (even though winters in Geraldton are very mild), but this year we decided to really embrace some glacial weather in all it’s glory.  None of us had any winter gloves, so instead of investing in pieces of clothing we were unlikely to use much again, I decided to make the girls some mittens from some old woollen jumpers.

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I was really happy with how they turned out (although I made a few mistakes along the way), so have decided to share the DIY on here. It’s a really simple project that reaps generous rewards. You can either use old woollen jumpers or sweaters (if you’re American) as they are, or felt them by washing them or tumble drying them at high temperatures. The turquoise jumper I used was felted, but the tangerine one was as is.  Some patterns encourage you to use the sleeves, but unless the gloves are for a toddler, they will be too small. I used the waistband of the jumpers for these gloves.

Firstly, you place one of your hands on a double layer of the jumper with your fingers together and your thumb in the natural position in which it sits when your hand is flat.  The bottom of the waistband should end at your wrist. Draw around your hand and then add a seam allowance plus a couple of centimetres for wriggle room. Cut out your mitten and use this one to cut another identical mitten. Sew right sides together on your sewing machine, turn right side out and then it’s done! Easy peasy! You can now have some fun embellishing the mittens with a bit of hand embroidery. Some pitfalls to watch out for : I made the turquoise ones too short in the wrist, hence the need for the extra cuff and the tangerine ones were too tight in the wrist, necessitating some  unpicking and resewing.

This holiday was the first time our kids got to experience snow, so there was great excitement! Some pictures of the mittens in action to follow . . .

 

 

Travel

New York, New York

Sarah James-Wallace

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Well, here we are on the final stop of our trip! The country bumpkins made it all the way from Geraldton to the Big Apple (although apparently New Yorkers never call it this). The City That Never Sleeps is a more apt description, as there is just so much going on here. It was a real buzz to be in such an iconic city and exhilarating to be caught up in the frenzy and excitement of such a huge concrete jungle just for a little while.

What to do while we were there? So much to see, so little time. This was the first visit for all of us, so we started with the obvious choices and figured we’d be back one day to experience some of the less touristy attractions.

As soon as we arrived, we headed to Times Square to soak up the atmosphere. This was every bit as scintillating and overwhelming as you might expect.

The next day we headed off on a tour to see The Statue of Liberty and the Immigration Museum. The museum was really fascinating, as it’s situated in the original building where immigrants were processed on their arrival into America. You can really feel the history in the walls! It’s a fascinating insight into the decisions of the past that have made America such a populous nation. America had a totally open immigration policy throughout much of it’s early history.

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The kids especially enjoyed visiting the Statue and climbing up to the top of the Pedestal. They were disappointed they couldn’t go up into the crown, but you need to reserve tickets six months in advance for this experience.

After our morning tour, we made our way past the New York Stock Exchange (with a quick history lesson for the kids), and then onto the 9/11 Memorial and Museum. This was a very moving experience (I spent most of my time here fighting back tears). Some of the exhibits were quite confronting for the kids, but we felt it was important for them to know the truth about what happened.

Our next day started with eating giant pretzels and a visit to Central Park. This is a beautiful, relaxing oasis amidst the concrete jungle. It was nice to take some time out here to lay around on the grass, but if you ever visit DON’T feed the squirrels! Unfortunately Portia was bitten badly on the hand by one as she tried to feed it a peanut. It latched onto her finger and was hard to shake off.

Lots of blood later, a quick visit to the chemist and some googling to ensure squirrels don’t carry rabies, and we were off to watch a baseball game at Yankee Stadium. We caught the subway to the Bronx for this (an experience I found totally baffling, as all the stations are numbered rather than named). You also need to know if you want to go uptown or downtown and whether to take a local or an express train. There are lots of potential errors waiting to be made! Happily, Murray had it all under control.

It was a fun experience to watch the Yankees play the Baltimore Orioles and to soak up a bit of the culture of the game.

Our last day was spent visiting the Central Park Zoo (we have some animal lovers in our family) and also the Brooklyn Bridge. We treated ourselves to dinner at a rooftop bar for our last night and then we were off to see Aladdin on Broadway in a beautiful old theatre. We all really enjoyed the show.

Our homeward bound plane was leaving that same night at 1am. As we exited the theatre the heavens opened with a huge summer thunderstorm (the east coast of the USA gets a heap of summer rain). As we had a plane to catch, we had no choice, but to run the few kilometres back to our hotel in the torrential rain, with water squelching out of our shoes at every step. We looked like drowned rats when the doorman let us back into the hotel! We just had time for a quick shower, before being whisked off through the night to the airport with extra hand luggage bags of soaked clothes and shoes. I don’t think any of us will ever forget the experience!

And so ends my recount of our epic American road trip adventure. We loved it all (apart maybe from the squirrel bite), and can’t wait to return one day to road trip around the western side. I’ll leave you with one last photo of Reuben making himself at home on the trip, as only he knows how!

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I’m taking a break for school holidays, but will return with some more kids’ party posts soon!

 

Travel

Boston

Sarah James-Wallace

D175D673-45D3-42F6-B837-53E6309F0EA3 This is a little how we felt when we arrived in Boston! Well Reuben did in any event, at the end of a day of non stop walking in high heat and humidity. Don’t you love it how kids just feel as if they can recline anywhere?

We only had one day to explore Boston, so we set out on a walking tour (with some Uber rides between some sights), to see what we could achieve. This is Reuben again below powering up for the day with some snacks and a stick for possible bear encounters!? Who knows?? (It’s dangerous out there in the urban jungle).

70FC9AC0-FC3E-4A37-83E3-8D19F305BC48 Our first stop (and quite close to our accommodation) was  Harvard University. We made a quick stop here to look at the buildings and to check out the medical school, of interest due to Murray being a doctor.

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Harvard Medical School

After this we caught an Uber ride to the Boston Tea Party Ships and Museum. This was the highlight for me, as the museum was excellent, with so many interactive exhibits and skilled actors in period dress who guided you through it all. Visitors were invited to take on a character and participate too. The 1773 protest here over unfair taxes (the Boston Tea Party) set in motion the events leading to the Revolutionary War.

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Re-enacting throwing the tea into the harbour

After lunch in the museum we headed off to the Boston Common (America’s oldest public park) to begin our time of walking the Freedom Trail. Adjoining the Boston Common is the beautiful Public Garden where we took some time out to take a ride on the historic pedal powered Swan Boats.

The Freedom Trail, covering four kilometres, is very rich in history and architecture, but I think to truly appreciate it you need a lot more time than we were able to dedicate to it. We used the Lonely Planet Guide for interpretation, but to fully immerse yourself in the experience you would need to have the time to go inside each building. Pictured below are some of the highlights from along the way.

After we’d thoroughly exhausted ourselves, stomping about in the heat (and shopping for an extra suitcase to cart all our souvenirs home), we just had enough energy to venture into the leafy streets of Beacon Hill for a delightful dinner at a small Italian Bar (which was really crowded, but cheerfully seated us, kids and all and suitcase in tow at the bar).

Next stop New York, New York!

Travel

Marvellous Maine

Sarah James-Wallace

We arrived in Maine and checked into our prebooked accommodation at the beautifully named Starlight Lodge at Rockport, only to discover that there were only three beds in the room, not the five we needed. No problem, as the manager was very accommodating, removing two of his camp beds from his mobile home and putting them in our room for us. After that, it was straight off in search of the lobster rolls for which Maine is so famous. We found a great little place down on the Rockport harbour where we could sample some local seafood delicacies.  We met an elderly couple from Philadelphia (at the restaurant pictured above), who looked at our family with an almost palpable wistfulness  – we brought back memories of their holidays abroad with their now grown children. We encountered a lot of Americans vacationing in their own country as we travelled about. Without exception they were exceedingly friendly, helpful and curious about us, wanting to engage in conversation.

We were becoming a little travel weary, being close to the end of our trip and so decided upon what an online travel article by Virginia Campbell from New England Today called the prettiest walk in New England. It also stated : Its not a long walk – about two miles or so – but it has great variety. The walk binds together two of New England’s most beautiful villages, Rockport and Camden. As one kind of loveliness slowly changes into another, the walk progresses the way a story does, from beginning to middle to end.  It was indeed a lovely walk, past very beautiful houses, gardens and bucolic farmland. The sun was shining and it was one of those days when you feel so blessed to be alive.

We found a cute little cafe overlooking the harbour with great coffee, a resident cello player and an on-site bakery  to begin our journey. We liked it so much, that we returned the next morning for Portia’s birthday breakfast. Reuben coped with the boring parts of the trip (shopping and cafes), as usual by propping himself in the doorway to read. Once we arrived in Camden we had a lovely time poking around the attractive little shops, enjoying the harbour, sampling more Maine cuisine, and going on a harbour cruise, which unfortunately was largely obscured by the sea mists for which Maine is known.

Once we had finished our harbour cruise, it was getting late and little legs were tired, so we caught an Uber (so easy and convenient when travelling) back to Rockport. And so ended our delightful day exploring a tiny picturesque corner of Maine. Next stop Boston!