The Brocante Home Chronicles.

I Am A Katharine

Tis the season to be silly (Tra la la la la- la la la). So I took a quiz.

And after answering just two questions, I have been analysed to the nth degree and the survey says I am a Katherine... and really rather spookily attributes personality traits to me that I really cannot argue with....

You are a Katharine -- "I am happy and open to new things" (Though not bungee jumping, thank you very kindly)

Katharines are energetic, lively, and optimistic. They want to contribute to the world. (But only when I feel like it. Understood?)

How to Get Along with Me   

• * Give me companionship, affection, and freedom. (But text me more than twice in one day and there will be trouble)   
• * Engage with me in stimulating conversation and laughter.(Or tickle my elbows.)   
• * Appreciate my grand visions and listen to my stories. (I'm all about me, me, me...)   
• * Don't try to change my style. Accept me the way I am. (But pinch me hard if I get out of control) 
• * Be responsible for yourself. I dislike clingy or needy people.(I get claustrophobic and bite you)
• * Don't tell me what to do.(Like you'd even dare)

What I Like About Being a Katharine   

• * being optimistic and not letting life's troubles get me down  (I live in a red wine haze. It's beautiful)
• * being spontaneous and free-spirited  (And saying hello to passing dogs) 
• * being outspoken and outrageous. It's part of the fun. (Trouble on a butty I am)   
• * being generous and trying to make the world a better place (But leave my chocolate alone)    
• * having the guts to take risks and to try exciting adventures (Which is the kind of thing that can get a person into trouble) 
• * having such varied interests and abilities (That nothing ever gets done)

What's Hard About Being a Katharine   

• * not having enough time to do all the things I want (It's mostly the shaving of my legs that has to be abandoned)   
• * not completing things I start (Well yes. But I get worried. And scared and a teensy bit bored) 
• * not being able to profit from the benefits that come from specializing; not making a commitment to a career (It is my very own cardinal sin) 
• * having a tendency to be ungrounded; getting lost in plans or fantasies  (Bless me and my high faluting ways)
• * feeling confined when I'm in a one-to-one relationship (Yup)

Katharines as Children Often

• * are action oriented and adventuresome (Ermmmmm...no. Give me a pencil and I was happy)
• * drum up excitement (and then abandon it ) 
• * prefer being with other children to being alone (So I could pinch them)   
• * finesse their way around adults (A skill I remain excessively proud of) 
• * dream of the freedom they'll have when they grow up (and then spend the rest of my life feeling terrified by it and wanting my mum)

Katharines as Parents   

• * are often enthusiastic and generous (But putting jam on everything does not a healthy kid make...)    
• * want their children to be exposed to many adventures in life (As long as it doesn't involve climbing. Or jumping. Or leaving my side for more than four hours.) 
• * may be too busy with their own activities to be attentive (God bless you my Darling Finn. Please don't tell my blog readers that yesterday I forgot to pick you up from school because I was busy doing other things. Blame Kath. It was her duty to remind me that pick up time was half an hour earlier than usual...)

Ok Housekeepers, your turn... Are you a Katherine, A Bette, A Doris, An Ingrid, A Jackie or a Marilyn?

Keep C.A.R.M and Carry On

The whole house is fragranced by the bewitching antiseptic fragrance of lilies delivered by a secret admirer or spurned lover. Thinking of you the card says. Ah if only whoever it was could see the humongous spot on your nose: your body still maintaining utter faith in it's hormone addled teenage self. You feel twitchy. Contrary to the myth your sister likes to perpetuate, you rarely lose things. In your own sweet, chaotic way, you are desperately organised: you never forget things and only occasionally manage to lose great big things like relationships and the cellulite on your thighs.But you have lost your camera lead and amongst everything else rankling your sleep, this is what keeps you awake at night. The world makes no sense if you cannot document the details of your day and so you carry on taking picture regardless. There is much to be remembered. It is Christmas. Santa is coming for breakfast. Your son has taken up spelling everything he says according to the laws of his very own alphabet and you are exhausted. Aching to commit to memory a picture of this exhaustion as a warning to lesser mortals.

Your little boy is a shepherd in the the school Nativity. The very idea of acting in a religious play (It's the story of Mary and Joe, M.A.R.I AND J.O, Mum. Do you know them?) appealing to the little man inside him planning to be a Shakespearean Priest when he grows up.
You promise yourself you won't cry. And you don't. You focus on recording his earnest little face shooing imaginary sheep and save your tears for later. Afterward, a chocolate Oscar in your hand, you help him undress in a classroom full of noisy kings and whiny angels.  You cannot find his scarf and the eagle eye of his teacher is on you as your son places a chubby little hand on your shoulder and says "For goodness sake Mummy, will you please keep C.A.R.M.". You look at Mrs Carr: she looks at you. All the complex unspoken intercourse of the relationship between teacher and parent passes between you. You are of course obliged to try to explain the enigma that is the silent "L". The words tumble out in a nonsensical fashion and he looks at you blankly and repeats C.A.R.M, Mummy, just stay C.A.R.M...

You wonder if you are losing the battle. (Safe perhaps, in the knowledge that he will win the war).

There is still shopping to be done. On Saturday morning your son's Father comes to steal him away and in a fit of what you can only term compassion in the face of your glaring PMT and massive family related worries, he insists you accompany them to the retail cathedral that is the Trafford Centre, because rumour has it, you can buy the feel good factor there in spades.

And so out you troop en famille, your child beaming and you, his parents, navigating a whole new dimension in what has always been for both of you, your defining relationship. But "friendship" sails on uncharted waters and there is much dangerous territory to be avoided, territory steeped in silent recrimination and tangly with the comfort of familiarity. You cannot help but say her name, though she is long gone. To watch his heckles rise just for the hell of it. Once you forget who you are and accidentally reach for his hand as you push your way through the tinselled masses.

It is too much. Too little. You leave the two of them sharing a H.A.P.I. Meal and wander around the food hall of Selfridges. Either the madness of frenzied shopping or the quandary of aching for something you no longer want making you feel claustrophobic. There is a whole section dedicated to elaborately decorated gingerbread houses. Sixty different types of olives, a sushi bar, and an area where people are turning taps on little bottle and creating mixes of you don't know what. Selfridges makes you feel shy. Too under dressed. Too pre-menstrual to investigate. You pay for garlic stuffed olives, an artisan made Christmas pudding and a pile of Wonka bars, and go through the arches to the Cath Kidston concession where you spend enough time there fingering the cowboy print wellies and pretty rosy corsages to raise the eyebrow of the pretty girl on the counter. 

(You buy a book. Of course you buy a book. As hungry as ever for the need to know).

Blessed lethargy  awaits you at home. You stand breathing ice into the air of your living room as you wave goodbye to your son, then shove the yellow Selfridges bags stuffed with the feel good factor into the Christmas Box. Christmas has not yet arrived here. There is as yet no tree: you being a stickler for personal ritual to the degree that you will not even contemplate decorating it until the 17th of December has passed. Your Mum laughs at you. Her own tree shrouded in nostalgia and fear you cannot take away.

Once again you swallow your tears,  avoid the calls of those who want to discuss the X-factor final (something you cannot watch because you can no more bear a strangers disappointment than you can your own), and disregard the texts spelling out the loneliness and boredom of the man you adored as a teenager. Things linger. They never quite die in your world.They linger on and on with all the ugly potency of  crumpled dying lilies. You seem to be waiting for the big bang.   

That night one of your best friends calls to tell you she is pregnant again. You are thrilled for her yet find yourself weeping as you recount her lovely news to your mum. It's always all about you isn't it? You hate yourself for it. You climb into bed with your beloved Anam Cara to remind yourself that it is OK to be the centre of your own universe. That from this all creativity and certainty and joy will spill. That someone somewhere gets who you are and quite likes your big bum. Your dreams taste of salt and yet you wake up with new vigor.

You package the last of parcels for the post office and turn the house upside down in search of the camera lead. It has gone. You are suddenly possessed to take action and drive the car with the broken clutch into town where you purchase a card reader for a silly sum of money and go home to unpack your little shepherd from his photographic box. And there he is.  Though you love him in a daily way, when you see him framed like this, true all encompassing Mummy love courses through your veins.

Because there he is. Yawning his way through his festive obligations and showing you the way to keep C.A.R.M. in a world where silent "L's" exist and the dusty carpet of your childhood is about to be swept away.

Winifred Peck On How Times Change

1890 (On December 20th at the earliest):

Father: What about the presents for the children, my Love? Are you shopping soon?
Mother: Yes, I thought I would drive into X tomorrow or Thursday and buy two dolls for the girls. I fear if they are nicely dressed they most cost as much as half-a-crown each. 
Father: Dear, dear! When I was a boy we should have only spent that on useful gifts. What about the boys?
Mother: The two elder ones want penknives, but I am so nervous about them. Unless you could pick up very blunt ones tomorrow?
Father: What about wooden skates? It looks as if the frost would hold: they're not expensive.
Mother (admiringly): What a good idea! And I have got two nice gay picture books for the little boys. I have got red flannel petticoats for all the maids, so if you tip John and the postman that will be all, till the gifts at the Parish Tea at the New Year. I'm afraid I may seem rather extravagant after your Mother, but after all, Christmas comes but once a year.

1930 (About December 18th):

Papa: What have you been doing? You look a wreck.
Mamma: Quite, quite too dreadful. the shops were all crowded, though it is so early, and I got so depressed that I went all extravagant. A. wants a wristwatch, and you know those cheap ones aren't very reliable, so I got him a silver one - for £2.00!
Papa: I had a five shilling one until I was twenty!
Mamma: I hadn't one at all till I was his age. Then B. wanted a model aerodrome because a boy at his school had one. I had to go all the way to Holborn, and don't ask me what it cost. And as for C, well I hoped to save by getting some nice ordinary boxes of soldiers, but hes longing fo a set of Romans and Carthigans, and they were rather expensive because of the elephants. So tiresome of Hannibal to use them!
Papa: What about the maids?
Mamma: Oh they were very little troubleas they wanted fur ties, so I got them al in the High Street for £2 each, and they really look more. But then afterlunch I began buying presents for our relations (so many!) and friends too! It would be heavenly if we were rich, but as it is one does get a sortof squint from seeing nice things for seven and ninepence when you are determined not to spend more than three and elevenpence! I seem to have got through about £10.00 on silly little gifts they won't care for.
Papa: Then why send them at all?
Mamma: Because they send to me, and it's so sweet of them. But somehow more people seem to give each other more expensive presents every year!
Papa: (without conviction): Why not make a stand?
Mamma (ignoring this): So you see though I calculated on only spending about £15, I've blued £25 already and I still haven't got anything for Uncle.L and his gardener- (Like al bad shoppers by nature I was always obsessed by a wild search for the most difficult recipients; the two in question were non-smokers, non-drinkers, had no gramaphone and liked no books but those of a mildly theological flavour. My eldest son always declares that he spent Christmas Eve with me, wandering up and down Bond Street in a last desperate seach, but this is acrocryphal).
Papa: Well what shall I get for you?
Mamma: Oh lets cancel each other out and wait for birthdays. We maybe richer then and anyhow it's no fun to shop just now, and - and- we must economize somewhere.

1950 (to judge by the advertisements), November 1st:

Daddy: Well, well! Only thirty more shopping days to Chrismas. what about it?
Mummy: I've got the lists ready, and here are the advertisements and the catalogues. I've marked this cocktail cabinet to give to you.
Daddy: Splendid! And this mink coat is for you, I suppose. Have you got Toby's toy motor cars yet?
Mummy: Yes, I've seen one and it's quite perfect. Good tyres and splendid brakes and the batteries are charged. And it's only £25! I must get this baby doll for Angela. It walks and talks and sleeps, and I don't think it should matter spending so much less on her- only £5.00, and she's so tiny.
Daddy: Good! What about our respective parents?
Mummy: This advertisement recommends Meditteranean Cruises- tickets for them I mean. And I thought perhaps this Christmas hamper for old Aunt Jane.
Daddy: Aren't you being a bit lethal all round. the journey would finish off our old ones and Aunt Jane would die of indigestion.
Mummy: Well the hampers have a special line for the Not So Young, and the advertisment says Southern Sun Prolongs Life. But there are lots of other ideas of course. For cheaper gifts for freinds and business acquantances they recommend cases of whisky.
Daddy: I wish I could think anyone would take the hint for me.
Mummy: Or a demand subscription on a Library or if you want to be an original, what about one of the electric gadgets that make tea and shave you in bed? Or this little bookcase full of Forest Face preparations. They are all in the five-guinea line and I've only about a hundred names on my list.
Daddy: (coming out of Advertisement Land with a sudden burst of realism): I say, what can we afford to spend on presents this year?
Mummy: (joining him): Twenty pounds at most.
Daddy: Well then, oneway and another, don't you think we'd better start again!   

Winifred Peck, Home For The Holidays, 1955.

Brocante Bookmarks

• Vintage Indie: Business Talk
  I think there's a calling for more great vintage business advice like this don't you?
• The Mother Letter Project
  Go write a mother letter...
• Plumdrop - The Place where sellers meet!
  What a great idea...
• Notion Farm Tooth Fairy Kit...
  Oh what a lovely way of marking a precious moment...
• Thrifty Miss Priss...
  The prettiest, glitteriest neighbourhood in the world...
• StopLights
  A gluten free blogger with style...
• {the blog}: party time!
  I'm besotted with this gorgeous kitchen...
• Little Elephants: Kids Crafts and Fun Activities: Christmas craft round-up!
  Lots and lots of festive crafts for kids...
• Ladies Blend - Warm Oatmeal and Peaches Facial Masque
  For tonight's bath...
• Etsyhacks
  Greasemonkeyscripts for improving your Etsy experience...
• Listology... The Most Beautiful Words In The English Language
  Oh this just makes me feel happy...I think "blandiloquent" is my favorite...
• Gift Ideas Generator
  Fun to play with..
• Cut Out + Keep | How To » Beautiful Paper Snowflake
  Soooooo pretty...

The Santa Claus Story

"There are good people who have their doubts about the propriety of keeping Christmas with Santa Claus as the central figure. They argue that there is really no such person as Santa Claus, and that when we tell children that a mythical personage, with bells and reindeer and laden sleigh comes down the chimney and fills their stockings with gifts, we are teaching them to deceive, since Santa Claus is only a name for fathers and mothers and other kind friends. But let us be quite sure that we are not ourselves in the wrong if ever we have joined the great company of these conscientious objectors to Christmas keeping, with a tree, and a saint, and Kriss Kringle and all the pretty lore of the period.

" Imagination," said Hans Andersen, " is a leaf from the sky." When we cultivate the imagination we cultivate the faith faculty and help our children comprehend the invisible. Because of the poverty of human invention and of human language, there are a thousand great truths which men and women can only vaguely and feebly grasp, can never fully understand, for now we see through a glass darkly."

Margaret Sangster, The Art of HomeMaking

The Nutcracker Stocking

Oh I do absolutely love the idea of stuffing a tiny little stocking with gift's inspired by The Nutcracker. Good old Martha Stewart has a list of suggested gifts for boys and girls alike and I think a stripy woolly stocking(I bought one in Ikea of all places... that and some meatballs) full of terribly old fashioned bits of childhood treasure hung on the iron bedpost of Finley's daybed on Christmas Eve morning would be the perfect antidote to the piles of plastic Santa will no doubt deliver the next day...

Next thing you know I'll be dressing him up in breeches and stockings and insisting he is seen and not heard.

In my dreams m'ladies, in my dreams.

Electric Eccentricity

Oh dear. I've known about Polyvore since the day it opened it's doors and knowing myself as I do, thought it best avoided, if I was to get anything done at all. And then today I was all curled up on the sofa with my laptop on my knee, Christmas In Connecticut on the DVD (Oh what undiscovered joy!), and a long tall glass of hot chai latte at my side and I decided to have a play...

And here I am, a stupid amount of hours later. The baby no more than dipped in the bath (Ok so he's five and no more a baby, but he'll always be my baby, so don't argue with me when I've got PMT coming out of my ears!), the evening meal no more than a token gesture with which to fill our stomachs and the house gone to the dogs...

And all for the most fun you can have wearing furry slippers. I'm always late to the party arent I?

I like to think of it as fashionably so... 

The Christmas Broom

"My husband gave me a broom for Christmas. This wasn't right. No-one can tell me  it was meant kindly."

Grace Paley.

Christmas Cards on Etsy

Vintage Flower Christmas cards at Tamar

Dear Santa at J. Black Designs

Let Them Eat Fruitcake at Vintage Bella

Seasons Greetings At Love Dog Card Company

 

Let It Snow by the Blue Valentine Press

...and Christmas Bluebirds at Angelinas Cards.

Christmas Cards. Now here's a subject that makes me feel jumpy. All that paper! All that time! All that ugliness to be dripped all over your walls! And all to exchange Christmas greetings with someone you live within spitting distance of??

Oh I know. I'm Scrooge. But when it comes to Christmas cards I'm with the Bishop. In a fashion. He said we should be only be giving cards to those we love, while I believe those we love know we love them and it is those in far flung lands and erm... Glasgow, who need a paper token of our festive best wishes. It is those relative strangers we cannot kiss or rarely see, who need to hear the thud of a card on their doormat, not the woman next door to whom you will probably be delivering a box of biscuits to regardless. It is long lost friends and virtual treasured acquaintances you want to share a little bit of real life with- not every mum in the playground, nor the auntie you will no doubt be sitting next to at the Christmas dinner table...

Ok annual card screech over... because the whole point of this whingy little post was to showcase some of the most fabulous cards on sale at Etsy, and not to regale you with my slightly outrageous take on Christmas Cards... because let it be said: if I was sending a mile high pile of cards these are the ones I'd be sending...

A Very Crunchy Christmas

It is, I believe, ritual rather than housekeeping that has been the mainstay of BrocanteHome,because much as I consider some of the lowlier joys of homemaking to be a necessary evil, it is my personal and familial rituals that I hold most dear...

Rituals fall in to two categories- those that happen almost by accident and instantly become beautiful habit, and those that we design and force ourselves to repeat for the comfort we know they will ultimately bring. Ritual can be something relatively simple: always using a certain cup and saucer to drink cranberry tea is a ritual, as is following a complex pattern of behavior before snuggling up in bed at night. The fact that my sister insists on stuffing every christmas cracker gift down her bra at the Christmas dinner table is a ritual as is the fact that every year my Dad refuses to to follow the ritual of collecting and binning the wrapping paper and I have something of a two minute hissy fit because he isn't doing what he should and then he goes and gets a bin bag and we all feel better... a ritual that has evolved from an effort to maintain a childhood certainty that made me feel that another year had passed but the world was as it should be...

What ritual to the Vintage Housekeeper however, is not, is compulsive. It is not set in stone and each of the little rituals we use to trim our daily and indeed seasonal routines should be constantly evolving and altering to reflect our way of life if they are to continue to bless our days in constantly changing circumstances.

In a December like this one, ritual becomes our mainstay. It is perhaps something personal, but it seems to me that this year the universe isn't putting on the pantomime that is Christmas with quite it's usual level of commitment to tinselly over indulgence, frenzied spending and merry enthusiasm. Perhaps it is this so called, media generated, "credit crunch". Perhaps we are afraid of throwing money at something that seems frivilous in a climate where too many people's livelihoods continue to be threatened. Perhaps there is something terrifying about standing in the certainty that is Woolworths two weeks before Christmas and watch a shop that is part of all our childhoods, try to liquidate its stock in crazy sales during a season in which we expect to pay top dollar for every item we chose to stuff in our babbas stockings with. All of a sudden the world feels wobbly and somewhat jaded...

I don't know why. But I do know that Christmas doesn't feel the same this year. That everything is tinged with the unfamiliar taste of real, necessary frugality, and worse than that, the gentle sting of something like guilt. In some quarters Christmas 2008 is being held up as the year that will in history prove to be a turning point in the way that we all live: that blatant commercial endeavors will be replaced by acts of random goodness, that frugality and green ethics will have to establish a balance that makes it possible for an organic way of life to be achievable for every Tom, Dick and Sally, and not a way of life exclusive only to those who can afford it, and that in the long term we all benefit for having had the very fabric of our lives threatened by the kind of fat cat financial mismanagement we may or may not tolerate in the future.

And so as a society, and indeed as individuals we have no choice but to seek the comfort of familiar ritual, even if our expectations of those very rituals have to be shifted to reflect a way of life inflicted upon us by the powers that be. It is after all, entirely possible, that if for whatever reason whether it be ethical or financial, we choose to consume less, the rituals that stitch families together will gain greater significance in our lives, because we only have to look to the children in our lives to understand that it is the rituals of the festive season that matter most, and that we have an opportunity as the only generation of adults to have ever lived in a climate where money was almost no object and where value was measured by price, to shake off greed as a way of life and teach our children to really embrace the spirit of daily and seasonal celebration.