Majjie's Blog

I'm not working today ... unless, of course, you call writing this work. I'll be down in the kitchen soon, rolling my sleeves up.

The kitchen, of course, tends to feature largely in the festivities of the season. In traditional homes theres a lot of food preparation going on before the big day ... and even in less domestic households, the kitchen is usually set to cook the biggest meal of the year ... on Christmas day.

Personally, I've never decorated up my kitchen for the festivities ... I tend to think of Christmas decorations as being only for the more restful rooms in the house. A quick surf of kitcheny blogs, though, shows that many people do decorate the kitchen and ... if you have a big living kitchen ... then it does make sense.

By the way, whatever happened to the idea of doing the Christmas decorations on Christmas Eve? I have to admit mine have been up for about ten days now. I guess it's the anticipation which is half the fun.

Some people have special Christmas china that they get out once a year, others wrap ribbons around their wall cabinet doors, or hang baubles on the handles. I've even seen a suggestion that you should replace the pictures in the kitchen with more festive scenes and buy a cheap mat and paint it in red and green squares.

I suppose the mat idea could be quite practical - it could catch any drips and spills and be thrown out when the cold light of January 5th dawns. I don't think I'll bother, though. It's a bit late for last minute ideas now.

I also saw a blog by Lauri Ward, on the US Readers Digest site, which suggested that the house should be de-cluttered when the Christmas decorations go up, because adding all the baubles and glitter makes the room look too fussy. I can see what she means ... but actually I like the clutter for a short period. The relief of going back to a sleeker, tidier looking house, is one of the few good things about the cold January day when the decorations do come down.

There's a few days of over-eating and merriment to be had first, though. Have fun!