Chez Larsson

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy thanksgiving, guys!

 

 

My dinner club members and I celebrated ours early. Say hi to Sarah!

 

Us dinner club members, Kerstin, Jenny, Sarah and I rotate the club dinners at our houses and this time around we were at Kerstin’s place, three houses from mine. There were cosmos…

 

 

… while the last bits of preparations were done.

 

And then we sat down for traditional turkey…

 

 

… stuffing, cranberry sauce, sweet potato mash and brussel sprouts…

 

… at the beautifully set Thanksgiving table.

 

For three quarters of us this was our first ever proper Thanksgiving dinner and of course we topped it off with a delicious pecan pie. I had it easy this time around and just supplied the drinks. That dessert wine was oh so good if I do say so myself! Thanks girls for a lovely evening!

Hope you have a great Thanksgiving! I know I have a lot to be thankful for.

Holiday Leather

Holiday prep is officially under way over here! This year again I’m keeping Christmas decor simple like last year and I will be reusing some of the things I made then but I’ll also be making some new holiday crafts.  This year I was inspired by leather, namely natural leather. I couldn’t find the pale kind I was after but I found this leather cord in a tan version which I liked.

 

The great thing about this leather cord is that it’s got a hollow core which allows you to insert wire into it. Here I used thin metal wire and was able to insert it quite a way into the cord. The green thicker wire in the top photo I used as a lock. I’ll show you what that looks like further down.

 

Here’s one piece of the leather cord with the thin wire inserted all the way through. It allowed me to twist it and for it to keep its shape.

 

And here’s what that looks like as a finished ornament. I got the end caps in the jewelry section at the local craft store (similar to these but without the hole).

 

To lock this little circle I drilled a larger hole into a wooden bead and simply inserted the ends. Easy peasy.

 

Here I used a short piece of green thicker wire as a lock for the larger ring by inserting one end (using pliers because it was a bit if a tight squeeze) into one end and then the other end of the cord forming it into a circle. The smaller ring I just did like the one above but hooking it on the the larger one before adding the bead.

Love how these turned out! I still have a bit left of the leather cord and it’ll probably make its appearance elsewhere in my holiday décor too. It’s early days yet!

Christmas Eve Spread

As you may know I’m not a foodie or even into food a little bit. I did receive some requests to see what our Christmas spread looked like though so by popular demand I give you what we ate for Christmas.

There were only four people at the table (Wille, Martin, Cecilia and I) so we knew not to serve a ton of food and we skipped a lot of the traditional Christmas foods that we know no one eats anyway and stayed with what we really like.

I don’t know how much you know about our Swedish “julbord” (=Christmas table) tradition but it’s basically a smörgåsbord of traditional fish, meat, vegetables + bread and cheese. We picked our favorites which are smoked salmon with dill, four varieties of pickled herring + sour cream and chives + potatoes and eggs (my substitute for the potatoes). There was also Janssons Frestelse, a bit of cooked ham and smoked lamb shank. To top it off we had four different cheeses with crisp bread and after a bunch of sweets like saffron cake and chocolates like home made Mozart Kugelns.

Oh, and as for drinks we served Glögg on arrival, beer with the fish and wine throughout the evening + “julmust” which is a traditional Swedish Christmas soft drink. And that was it.

Ps. I'm taking the day off blogging tomorrow, so I'll see you again on Monday. Happy weekend!

Quick Christmas Eve Recap

Morning, putting gifts under the tree. With help.

 

Noon, setting the table.

 

4 pm, waiting for Martin and Cecilia to arrive.

 

Just before dinner.

The morning after.

Happy New Year!

Can you believe that it’s 2013 tomorrow? It’s kind of hard to think that another year passed. They seem to pass by faster and faster each year…

So how was 2012 for you? For me it was a good year. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed life on my own and have really loved living in the new house with Wille, Mini and Bonus who have all been happy here this year. Them happy, me happy.

I’m not one to make up a lot of resolutions (that I’ll only keep for the first three weeks of January at the most) but I do have hopes for the coming year. I’d like to take more time off, see my friends more and take time for some things that have been on the back burner for too long. I also always secretly hope I’ll win the lottery or come by a major inheritance from a long lost relative so I can quit my 9 to 5, blog full time AND have lots of time for fun stuff and travel. Yeah, right.

Anyway, to all of you from all of me have a happy, happy new new year!

Gott Nytt År!