Although for most folks the Holiday Season is pretty much over now, for us it always seems to go on just a little bit longer. You see, our son’s birthday is on 4th January so the celebrations carry on just that little bit longer, right up to Twelfth Night. I really like this; it kind of lets us down slowly after all the celebrating but still lets us finish off with something that is a lot of fun.
This is an exciting birthday for us all as it is kind of a milestone. In England you can’t take your first lesson until your 17th birthday, and tomorrow our son has his first one. In my opinion, driving is one of the first big steps on the road to adulthood, so suddenly he seems very grown up indeed. I had to laugh when he said “I can’t believe I’ll be 17 tomorrow” to me this afternoon, because frankly, I can’t either. Where did the time go?
Our son always likes us to leave the Christmas decorations up for his birthday so the house still looks like a celebration. This works out very well because in England as it is traditional to take the decorations down on Twelfth Night. That’s the night of 5th or 6th January, depending on whether you go according to medieval tradition or modern tradition. Some people believe that Twelfth Night is the night preceding the twelfth day - that is the night of 5th January - because in medieval times the next day was considered to begin at sunset. However others believe it is the night of the twelfth day of Christmas itself, which is the 6th of January. Anyway, whether they think it is the 5th or the 6th, people here in England are very superstitious about getting the decorations down on time (it’s something to do with tree spirits...). However, I’m not because where I come from in Canada it really didn’t matter when you took the decorations down. In fact, people were (and are) far more likely to leave them up through the dark days of winter. But I will definitely start to take them down on the 5th and hope to finish by the 6th, just to be safe :)
We’ve got some fun plans for tomorrow. We are heading up to London to celebrate our son’s special day, starting out with an early tea in the Palm Court Restaurant at The Ritz Hotel on Park Lane and moving on from there. I’m seriously excited about it all, and it isn’t even my birthday!
As for today, I’ve been tidying and sorting things out, sale shopping and birthday cake baking. My husband and I had great success at the Laura Ashley sale this afternoon. We managed to get all sorts of pillows, throws, bed covers etc. which have really given the house a lift. Although we have not painted or decorated yet, the house is finally beginning to come together. Here is a peek at how the guest room is evolving thanks to our visit to Laura Ashley today:-
The curtains and the cylindrical pillow were custom made by Laura Ashley Design just after we moved in, but I had been unable to find a bedspread I liked. This one is perfect, and the throw pillows just make it. I’m still looking for a bigger chest of drawers for this room (you can’t see the current one as it is out of shot). The room we use as the guest room is the smallest bedroom in the house so we keep looking for clever storage ideas for it. (We gave the very large guest suite to our son because we figured it made more sense to use the bigger space for someone who is here all the time rather than just for visitors.) I’m also looking for a new lamp for the side table, hopefully one with a shade in the same colour as the bedspread. Then I’ll start to think about paint or wallpaper. I’ll post some more photos of the things we found in the sale for other rooms in the house later in the week.
In the meantime, I hope you are enjoying the tenth day of Christmas (and that no one has given you Ten Drummers Drumming)!
