DIY Garden Projects, Yummy Recipes, & Crafty Goodness
My recipe for Christmas Morning Granola packed with pecans, cranberries and coconut is posted today at the My Own Ideas blog. It makes a healthy breakfast choice for holidays laden with rich food and too much drink. Top 1/3 cup of Greek yogurt with 3/4 cup homemade granola for a filling breakfast or a healthful treat.
Inspired by the festive Grinch Tree that graces the Garden Therapy house, we threw a Whoville-themed holiday open house for friends and neighbours. A little kitchy, with many natural elements, and a retro vibe all rolled up into one makes for this theme.
The party table was loaded with retro ribbon candies, scotch mints, nuts in the shells, colourful shortbread cookies, and lots of nibblies. Vegetables were served in vases, and the cheese, of course, was accompanied by a selection of homemade preserves.
Old Grinchy took center stage.
Natural yew, cedar, and ivy decorated the mantle with a simple string of lights, a few pinecone balls, some scrabble tiles, and a dried Schubertii Allium seed head.
The final decorations were crystal ornaments hung from our bare bulb chandelier. Inside some of the glass balls were mini pinecones, mushrooms from past foraging, and owl feathers from the Snowies at Boundary Bay.
It was a wonderful party with plenty of laughs.
Here’s to happy holidays all around. Merry Christmas and sleep well with the thoughts that gardening season will is just around the corner.
The Christmas tree that graces the Garden Therapy house this year is not a huge, lush, extravagantly-adorned spectacle as it has been in the past. Nope, this year we almost didn’t put up a tree. I was feeling a bit grinchy and will admit that the holidays have been difficult in the past, the last few years in particular. So this year the plan was to just skip Christmas all together, keep busy through the winter and pop out on the right side of Spring, ready to get diggin’ again.
You’re a rotter, Mr. Grinch / You’re the king of sinful sots / Your heart’s a dead tomato splotched with moldy purple spots / Mr. Gri-inch! / You’re a three-decker sauerkraut and toadstool sandwich with arsenic sauce!
But then and idea hit me. Like a vision appearing before me it was suddenly clear as day: a Grinch Tree. A tree design that celebrates not just the joy and wonder of the season, but celebrates the difficulties and challenges as well.
If those little Who’s could sing their hearts out in tough times, then so can I. I bought a potted cedar and rigged it up by pruning and re-attaching some branches so that the ball on the top would hang over just right. The perfect green ball and ribbon were easy to find.
The decorations are a combination of simple white lights, wooden ornaments, felted acorns, and kitchy silver disco balls. And the base is wrapped simply in burlap with a big green bow.
