stylingtheseasons

And how to communicate with teenagers successfully…

After Christmas I received hundreds of sale emails from various interior shops. One of them was from Cox & Cox, a great online retailer with quirky items. I was not planning to buy anything, especially after Christmas, but this little beauty caught my eye, and it was also reduced so it would have been rude not too really….

It’s a light box that come with lots of letters, and you can either wall-mount it or have it freestanding. This has become the key way of communicating with my teenagers at the moment as they shoot in and out of the house, and they also love to leave messages too, so it is a two-way thing.

I have mine in the hall, so they can see it the minute they enter the house. There is NO WAY they cannot get the message. Unlike a phone that they can say they did not have on to receive a text or a voicemail, this sign is in your face and unmissable.

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When I first got it, I did a cheery message to get them ready to go back to school after the Christmas holidays:

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By the end of day one at school, it had been changed to this by a child…

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But generally it is a lovely sign to greet people and you can personalise it too if you want.

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But it also has brutal usages if so required…

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Genius, thank you Cox & Cox!

Yes, I am really a bit sad, I freely admit it! I spent this afternoon messing about with the dining table, china, glasses, cutlery and so on, so as to plan upcoming Christmas entertaining in advance.

We have 3 lunches to do over the Christmas period, including the biggie on Christmas Day, and rather than go into a spin with table decorating on the actual mornings themselves, (when I am supposed to be concentrating on cooking), I thought it better to know what I would put on the table for each occasion in advance.

Lunch Number One

This table is styled with fresh whites and greens. There are lots of natural elements in those colour ways on the table. A large footed glass bowl of hydrangeas has raffia curled around the inside to hide the stems. Faceted tea light holders in clear glass bounce light around and don’t block eye levels. Two porcelain flower shaped tea light holders add more candle glow. The table has two linen runners on it, one natural laid in one direction and a pale lime green going in the opposite direction.