On this Christmas Day, I want to once again wish you joy and peace, with love and laughter of family and friends, just on video chat this year. My wish for you, all my readers, no matter where you live or what your faith, is for health and happiness on this day and every day.
I wrote these wishes in 2016, and I still wish for the same things, even more so this year. I wish for a world where tolerance and respect is the norm instead of the exception for all people. I wish for people of different faiths and backgrounds to see others as merely different and not evil. I wish for all to live and let live, to pursue happiness as each sees fit, to learn from one another, to help one another, attend to making their lives as good as they can without tearing down others in the process. I wish for a world where all people spend their energy creating and serving instead of destroying or committing crimes, where the pursuit of excellence and knowledge takes center stage, where honest work is rewarded no matter what the job. I wish for an end to violence in all its forms. I wish for an end to homelessness and hunger. I wish for every shelter dog to find a home. I wish for peace in the world. I wish for everyone to have joy in their lives, and to spread joy to others.
I hope that 2021 will see us able to have dinner out again, meet with our friends again, go to quilt shows and car club events again, and hug each other again.
To bring you some joy today, let’s revisit the Christmas Tour of Inns from 2014. Beautiful homes, lovely tablescapes and fun decorations always make me smile, and I hope you will too. I’ll give you a few pictures today, and links to the original posts for more photos and historical information.
That year, the local bed and breakfast houses decorated for the holidays, and opened to the public for self guided tours for a weekend. Every house had cookies for the ticket holders too. We saw them all, and I shared some wonderful photos in three posts. The tour began in Holiday Tour of Inns Part 1 with the Elizabeth Leigh House built in 1893, shown below, and we also saw the Pinebrook Manor Inn.
In Part 2, we visited the Inn on Church, The Claddaugh Inn, and the Waverly Inn. Two stunning staircases were decked out in holiday finery, along with mantles and lovely verandas. All three of these are in our downtown area. Click on Holiday Tour of Inns Part 2 to see them.
In part 3, we went to Laurel Park and up the mountain there to the Echo Mountain Inn. The view out the window with the snow village was lovely from the mountaintop. We then went to Aunt Adeline’s to see the nutcracker filled B&B. Click on Holiday Tour of Inns Part 3 to see the last ones on the tour. I hope you enjoy the lovely photos and beautiful rooms.
My Sweet Babboo and I wish you a wonderful holiday, filled with delights.
I’m planning a sumptuous feast for our holiday dinner. We’ll be having a Standing Rib Roast, my Cheddar Onion Mashed Potatoes, and maybe the Roasted Garlic Spinach Bake. Of course, we’ll eat on the Lenox Holiday Tartan china, just like we do every Christmas.
I think I’ll make some Yorkshire Puddings this year too. The only difference between these and popovers is the fat that is used. Yorkshire Pudding uses beef fat drippings, while popovers use vegetable shortening. I show you how to make them on my post Popovers with Black Cherry Creme.
Merry Christmas!!! What are you having for your holiday dinner? Do you have a wish for 2021?
From My Carolina Home 
Merry Christmas…..I hope you got your White Christmas wish…….we sure did….it’s still coming down up here in Upper Crabtree……over a sheet of ice due to the 20 degree temp drop late yesterday afternoon. Hunkered down – 1 of 2 annual movies seen last night – A Christmas Stori….Die Hard is on the agenda for today.
Such a beautifully written post. You are an inspiration in so many ways. Your Christmas meal sounds delicious, I used to make standing rib roast for my mom on New Years eve. This year we are having ham balls, calico beans, delicious potatoes and fiesta corn. All recipes passed to me by a dear family friend who passed away a few years ago.
A picture of my small Christmas display. Usually I do more but for this year, it is enough. I made the wreath close to 20 years ago – it could use a little refreshing but won me a blue ribbon at the Iowa State Fair.
News on the Autumn Jubilee quilt – it’s back on the frame with a back made of 5” squares. I hope I don’t live to regret that choice but I thought it would be fun to make a reversible quilt.
Merry Christmas to you and your family. Rhonda
Merry Christmas, Carole!!
Loved all your photo’s and the stories that went with them. Made me smile to see your Yorkshire Puddings as I’m a Yorkshire girl, born and bred and still live in my home town Hull, which is in East Yorkshire on the River Humber. We had a tiny amount of snow overnight but all gone now. Sending you both Yorkshire greetings for a Happy Christmas and a safe and healthy New Year 2021 ❤ x
Your wishes for our world join mine, Carole! Have a lovely Christmas Day, and enjoy your beautiful home, a delicious meal, and most especially your sweet Babboo!
We love popovers. I bought my special pan years ago and it was not cheap but it is worth it if one wants good results. The Black Cherry Cream sounds very delish. Can’t wait to make it. Hope you had a nice Holiday. Have a Happy and Blessed New Year.
So nice to read your Christmas wishes for us all Carole! Completely agree!!! It is 8 degrees here in St Louis but dry. Looking forward to attending another zoom retreat with you this year, and am thinking about investing in a new sewing machine (mine are vintage). We’ll see. Always lovely to visit this blog and FB group everyone on it. Hope everyones day is special!!
Merry Christmas, Carole! Lovely post. As my area, in just a few short weeks, went from the lowest to the highest rate of infection in the State, everyone is staying home & celebrating small. I’m finishing a pair of socks & watching the delightful Alastair Sims version of A Christmas Carol. Oh, how that door knocker with Jacob Marley’s ghost used to scare me when I was little.
Merry Christmas to you Carole and your Sweet Babboo. Your post today, expressed the wishes we all have for the world, as it is today. It’s very difficult to adjust to a world where there is so much hatred permeating the minds and hearts of people, instead of the peace and love they should be expressing. All we can do is pray that, at some point next year, we will be able to feel free to burn our masks and hug our relatives and friends whenever we see them. Enjoy the sumptuous feast you are preparing today. It certainly looks yummy!
Merry Christmas to you and your Sweet Babboo. Thank you so much for sharing on so many interesting topics and for the wide variety of photos. The two of us hope to have a video chat with the children who reside in two different states. I will be making some of the traditional, well liked sides and will enjoy the left-overs tomorrow. Not sure about any desserts.
Here’s to the New Year. Keep safe,
Connie W.
Merry Christmas to you and your Sweet Babboo!
Your dinner sounds amazing! We have postponed our family dinner until tomorrow. Six inches of snow fell on us last night, 8 inches on my daughter with the toddler. We’re all snowed in and an hour apart. I’m hoping the roads will be cleared by tomorrow. Sigh….just hubby and me home today…I sure miss my 3 girls and 4 grandbabies. Sigh again! Merry Christmas, dear friend. May you and “your sweet Babboo” have a wonderful holiday season. Thank you for all the “joy” you’ve shared over the years.
Merry Christmas to you and your sweet hubby. Enjoy all your pictures and some of the incredible houses of the past and how they’ve turned in the inns. Hoping for health and joy for this next year for all of our quality friends Pamela
Merry Christmas, Carole!! And three cheers for your wishes for the world, too! It’s 58* here in NH and the overnight rain we had washed away every bit of snow we had last weekend! Supposed to be 30* tomorrow??? Just the two of us are having a traditional beef roast dinner with homemade eclairs for dessert, which we sampled for breakfast. (Hey, we’re grownups, we can if we want to! Haha.). Here’s to a New Year full of good things: an end to Covid, hatred, poverty and just plain meanness; health; peace in heart and mind. And more of your lovely posts! So encouraging.
Merry Christmas to you and your Sweet Baboo ! May this be the last Christmas that we must spend apart from our friends and families! Peace and love during these difficult times seem to be absent everywhere, even in our own small towns and cities. Maybe next year we can discuss quilt patterns that use old masks as scraps??
Your list of Christmas wishes remind me of the modern Christmas song “My Grownup Christmas List”. Would that we could wave a magic wand and make it so. I do miss hugs and hope they are not banished forever. Our white Christmas did not materialize, just rain and cold and a little bit of ice. But we’re not going anywhere. Merry Christmas to you. Enjoy your festive meal.
Tolerance. That’s quilters! We can put purple with orange and stripes with flowers! When I was little I had 2 friends and we 3 were inseparable. Couldn’t be apart for a moment – so we all went to Temple on Friday, Mass on Saturday and Church on Sunday. Learned about other traditions and ways of doing things – and foods! Oh my, the food!
Happy Christmas to all! And a special thank you to Carole for keeping our spirits bright all these months.
Your words can be read worldwide, beautifully written, and from your heart. Have a joyous Day, you and your Sweet Baboo, as this year we all celebrate in such a different way.For so many the fact that family cannot travel or stay will be devaststing, we all know this might be the way for some time, and accept that emails, phone calls and Facetime, Skype or Zoom is the new normal now. We will see one daughter later in January, the other in March, Fondest Season’s Greetings to you both.
standing rib roast as well….wish for 2021 is the same as everyone i guess…back to normal life..
Merry Christmas to all! I feel like we all are doing pretty well with this crazy year, and it means so much to look in on everyone’s plans for this day!!
Thank you so much for this post. It is all I wish for you. It is very uplifting today. Merry Christmas an a blessed year ahead.
I echo your beautiful wishes. Merry Christmas to you and your loved ones, too. Best wishes for happiness & good health in to year to come!
What a lovely,, lovely post. Thank you for this. Merry Christmas to you and your own Sweet Baboo. And tonight we will have ham, roasted potatoes, and our new favorite: acorn squash with ricotta and Parmesan cheese. It’s become a new favorite side dish, so thank you so much for that simple but delicious recipe. Here’s to a gradual unfolding of delight in 2021.
Sending Christmas Wishes to you from sunny New Zealand, Christmas is celebrated in Summer down here, and Christmas Day was fine but with a cool wind blowing. We ate out at a local restaurant with friends for Christmas Lunch, then caught up by telephone with family members later in the day. Today, Boxing Day, the weather has changed, and the rain is coming down.
I really enjoy your blog, you cover some lovely topics and it is so nice to read about what is happening on your side of the world through your car trips.
What a beautiful holiday wish Carole. Hope and your sweet Babboo have a wonderful Christmas!
Lots of fun memories. There will be more years like that, but this year will have a unique set of its own. =) Merry Christmas!
Dear Carole, your meal sounds lovely! I hope you and your hubby had a nice Christmas day. I, too, hope that kindness and love will prevail in the new year. This year has shown us the ugly side of things and it sure has been hard for a lot of people, however, there have been angels in the way who were willing to help others and risk their lives for others. God bless them. Wishing you, health, peace and love, Felicia
I forgot to tell you how much I enjoyed the parade of Ins. Thank you so much!
May all your Christmas wishes come true, Carole.
I hope you had a wonderful day.
Merry Christmas to all! Carole, your message is extremely powerful and I share in your desire for a better world. Thank you for all the joy, love and peace that you give to our world.
Oh Carole, I wish you and your husband many blessings this year. Thank you for sharing your creative and organizational talents with all of us. You are a Force to behold!
Merry Christmas to you and yours. Cheers!!!
Good evening Carole, Well. I’m still going thru all these e-mails I have missed for the last 7 months, what a task! Like you and everybody else I’m looking forward to being able to go out , travel and be with all my wonderful friends again. I really like the bed and breakfast places myself and the santa’s look a lot like the ones mu friend and I use to make and sell at the craft shows. We made a Mrs Clause to go with Santa and we sold the heck out of those sets cause no-body else was making them. I use to use mens ties and made santas coats with fur trim on them that we would buy from the thrift stores and then we would often barter with other venders that had something we liked and would swap our merchandise with each other, may how I miss those times. I Still have a lot of my supplies but have been donating a lot of the materials to the Linus group to use on the blankets we make for the fire, police and hospitals that need them so have been Busy helping where I can. Have a great evening, Phyllis