Merry Christmas! I hope you all have a wonderful day gathering with family and friends. This blog was originally posted on December 20, 2017. Enjoy!
I love how my home looks when it is filled with holiday decorations.
As you know, I opened three buildings for my recent holiday gathering here at my Bedford, New York farm. My Summer House, which I use as a library for my vast collection of books, was dedicated to "Caroling & Champagne". My longtime housekeeper, Laura, filled nearly every room with gold and silver - trees in every corner and on every table, with gleaming ornaments and garlands I've collected through the years. It looked simply magical.
Enjoy these photos.
My Summer House was the original house on the property. It was first built in 1770. It has been rebuilt and restored, but it remains on its original footprint.
Many of you have seen the back of the Summer House, where I created this tranquil sunken garden, now covered in burlap for the winter.
For my party, the Summer House was dedicated to singing joyful Christmas carols and sipping delicious champagne. It was also where guests could enjoy my eggnog, plum pudding, and fruit cake, and sit and share holiday stories and plans.
Guests entered the home to see the grand center stairway and handrail bedecked with a long garland of silver balls.
I love how it wraps around the dark wood railing.
Behind the front door is a wreath. I also have a wreath on the front of this door.
This room is filled with gold and silver trees and ornaments – I love how everything glistens.
We also used white and cream-colored ornaments, and ornaments in shades of copper and brass – all these metallic colors blend together beautifully.
I love this tabletop tree, flanked by candles in front of this bookcase. It’s decorated with gold balls and ornaments shaped like pinecones.
Atop the mantel, cardboard trees lined up in a row.
The room looks elegant yet festive, with lots of seating for my guests.
In the center, another tabletop tree with more shining gold ornaments. This one is set inside an urn, painted in gold. Trees don’t always have to be propped up in traditional stands – look for interesting vessels that can be used instead.
Laura hung these pinecone ornaments on the fireplace screen – such a pretty touch.
In another corner is this tall sterling tinsel silver champagne artificial tree – it’s from my Christmas collection at The Home Depot. goo.gl/judpnB
More pinecone ornaments and traditional balls cover the branches. When hanging ornaments, I like to use wire that is close in color to the tree.
Metallic wreaths are hung in every window.
This tree sits on one end of the center hallway. It is a skinnier tree, but I love how it is dressed – overflowing with ornaments. If you look closely, we used tinsel at the bottom of the tree to surround the wicker tree skirt.
This mantel is decorated with silver balls in a variety of sizes – so simple, yet so elegant.
Here is another silver tinsel tree with silver pinecones and a silver tinsel garland draped on its branches.
For the stand, we spray painted a section of a log in silver. These tree stands were made from felled trees and cut right here at the farm. I always try to repurpose whenever I can.
And in this room, we decorated the long counters with pink and green trees.
Glass globes sit in simple Jadeite bowls. These trees are in natural wood tree stands, also cut right here at the farm.
And each tree is decorated with only a single ornament at the bottom – this one is a green pinecone.
And this one is a natural colored pinecone with a pink ribbon to match the tree.
Here is a view from one end of the room – it is simply gorgeous.
Champagne glasses sat in a silver tray nearby.
I love this view of the napkins folded and positioned in a circular pattern on top of a Jadeite cake stand.
Window seats are decorated with little houses and more trees.
Here are a snow-covered house and church sitting on another table.
I love this photo of the wreath, chair and the beautiful tree outside – everything is so pretty. Tomorrow, I will share photos from my Winter House, where Chef Pierre Schaedelin prepared and served all our glorious savory foods. What do you think about the decorations in my Summer House? I am interested and eager to read your comments.
Here's another fun holiday memory. This festive party was originally posted on Dec. 19, 2017.Â
I love this time of year when everyone gathers together to celebrate the holidays.
This weekend, I hosted my annual holiday party at my Bedford, New York farm. Nearly 200-guests wandered in and out of three buildings, each with a different and festive theme. My Winter House was where my friend, Chef Pierre Schaedelin, and his talented team from PS Tailored Events, prepared and served a variety of delicious and savory dishes. Champagne was served in my Summer House, and for those looking to satisfy their sweet cravings, the Tenant House offered an array of beautiful holiday cookies and candies. Friends, family, and neighbors also enjoyed hayrides, caroling, and photos with Santa! It was a cold late autumn day, but everyone had a most wonderful time!
Enjoy these photos.
Here is my Tenant House, where my daughter, Alexis, and her children stay during visits to the farm.
During the party, it was filled with lots of “Candies & Cookies for Young & Old”. Each of the houses was labeled, so visitors knew what to find inside.
After opening the door, visitors saw decorations on every table and wreaths in every window.
These mini natural mint pillow candies and all our hard candies came from Hammond’s. http://www.hammondscandies.com/
The long table is filled with homemade cookies surrounded by whimsical woodland animals and miniature figurines. Our test chefs, Jason Schreiber and Molly Wenk baked more than 1000-cookies for the event. Many of the recipes are from my books and my web site at MarthaStewart.com.
As many of you know, my longtime housekeeper, Laura, has an exceptional talent for decorating. Every year, she creates the most stunning displays. This is a little snowy gnomes’ village set on the table.
It is complete with tiny figures, such as these playful gnome carolers.
There are cookies everywhere – the children were all amazed at the vast selection of cookies. Here is a display of delicious gingerbread, sugar cookies, and zaleti.
Zaleti is the traditional name for the northern Italian cornmeal cookies, usually made with lemon rind and grappa-soaked raisins.
Here’s a big favorite – iced sugar cookies. I love using natural elements in my decorating. We used very flat slices of wood to display our cookies.
These are called sables – French salted butter cookies.
And of course, we added a bowl of caramel corn with nuts. Watch my recent Facebook LIVE and see how we wrapped these to give away as a gift. https://www.facebook.com/pg/marthastewart/videos/
We made this candle holder from a log – it’s perfect for holding our LED votive candles.
More sugar cookies shaped like stars, deer and crescent moons – we used a large variety of cookie-cutter shapes.
These are glazed lemon poppy shortbread cookies.
Laura displayed a row of iced sugar cookie Christmas trees and snowflakes along one side of the table on faux bois napkins.
Here are traditional gingerbread men and a big sugar cookie snowflake.
These are churros stacked neatly on another wooden board.
Look at this display of Christmas trees – I love how each colored tree is decorated differently. On each side are brown butter cardamom shortbread cookies from our Martha & Marley Spoon Holiday Cookie Box.
Behind the long table are planter pedestals topped with woodland stuffed animals and bottle brush trees.
Because my grandchildren stay here when they visit, I love decorating the space for them with lots of colors and stuffed toys.
This tree is adorned with simple yet decorative pinecone garlands.
We also used Hammond’s candy cane Christmas trees as ornaments.
And Hammond’s candy canes
The mantle in the Tenant House is decorated with a Christmas village scene.
And on the table, more cookies, candies and safe LED pillar candles. I love the gnome cookie display surrounded by Hammond’s ribbon candies – it would be great for a magazine cover.
On another Christmas tree, Laura placed lots of bird ornaments, like this red one.
I think these acorn ornaments are so pretty.
In the kitchen, there are more plates filled with tasty cookies, including Alexis’ chocolate chunk cookies, zaleti, and brown butter cardamom shortbread from our Martha & Marley Spoon Holiday Cookie Box.
Laura brought out these wonderful toadstools – I made these on “The Martha Stewart Show” – everyone loved these stools.
Alexis’ Chocolate Chunk Cookies went so fast. We used her chocolate chip recipe, only with chocolate chunks instead – so delicious.
Here’s a winking sugar cookie gnome and buccellati. Buccellati cookies are Sicily’s best-known Christmas cookie – a thin pastry wrapped around a filling of dried figs and nuts.
Here are more buccellati cookies, sugar cookies and in the back, red-brown butter cardamom shortbread cookies.
As cookies were eaten they were quickly replaced by more – we had lots of cookies to go around!
Here are more gingerbread men, Alexis’ chocolate chunk cookies and Buccellati.
These are called Casadinhos. These are Brazilian cookies with guava. It is made of two little sugar cookies filled with guava paste.
Here are gingerbread men standing around our Noel Nut Balls from our Martha & Marley Spoon Holiday Cookie Box.
Here’s a stack of peppermint brownies from our Martha & Marley Spoon Holiday Cookie Box – they were all gone by the end of the party.
On the staircase, Laura used these beautiful bears to greet guests as they turned the corner from the kitchen – so cute.
The living room was also decorated for children – with the coffee table complete with a decorating project for our smallest guests.
On the large stuffed bears and mini Christmas trees – yoga Santas.
Here is another yoga Santa – everyone loved these ornaments.
Polar bears sat nearby.
And as guests left the Tenant House, they saw this lovely display of deer amidst trees, and silver and gold snowballs. Everything is so pretty – thank you, Laura! Tomorrow, I will share photos from my Summer House – you’re going to love it!
This special gathering was originally posted on Dec. 22, 2018 - enjoy this encore blog!Â
The holiday season is among my favorite times to entertain.
Yesterday, I hosted a very special gathering for the entire staff at my Bedford, New York farm. All my employees work so hard during the year - caring for the property and my many pets and gardens and helping me prepare for parties and other events. In particular, I wanted to honor my longtime housekeeper, Laura Acuna, who has worked with me at my homes for 32-years! I planned a festive holiday meal, which was served buffet style in the Winter House kitchen. It included a delicious endive salad, tomahawk steaks, lamb chops, roasted sweet potato, homemade blinis with cottage cheese and my own pink applesauce, macaroni and cheese, stollen and Panettone, and Alexis’s Brown Sugar Chocolate Chip Cookies. It was a busy morning of cooking and preparing, but we had a most enjoyable luncheon!
Here are some photos, enjoy.
Here I am with my Bedford staff on the steps to my Winter House. Laura, who is in the first row, is retiring after more than three decades working with me.
My executive assistant, Shqipe Lulanaj, prepared the endive salad – two great big bowls of fresh curled leaves. Endive has a crisp texture and a sweet, nutty flavor with a pleasantly mild bitterness.
I prepared these gorgeous tomahawk steaks given to me by my friend, director of photography, Gary Nardilla.
I decided to serve lunch on brown Transferware platters. This beautiful platter was gifted to me by my friend, Kathy Sloane.
While preparing lunch, John Barricelli, owner of Sono Baking Co., stopped by to bring me Panettone and Stollen.
Here are some of the cookies I baked – just fresh from the oven. They’re Alexis’s popular and crispy Brown Sugar Chocolate Chip Cookies.
The recipe is in my original “Entertaining” book, which was published in December 1982.
We also used these fun plaid napkins – a nice complement to the Transferware.
The macaroni and cheese is cooking perfectly – just a few more minutes. Get the recipe from my web site. https://www.marthastewart.com/957243/macaroni-and-cheese
The tomahawks are so big and juicy – here they are cooking on the grill. The tomahawk steak is a long-bone rib steak. The extremely long bone makes it stand out from any other – so impressive.
I took this quick photo of the macaroni and cheese as soon as I took it out of the oven – the top is perfectly browned.
I made two large platters of macaroni and cheese – both went very quickly.
I made a flavorful vinaigrette for the endive salad and it was ready for serving.
This is horseradish that I made from the roots grown right in my garden. It has such a wonderful and lively flavor – perfect on the meats.
More of Alexis’s delectable big brown cookies – I made quite a lot for the hungry crew.
Lunch was scheduled for 1pm sharp – everyone was very punctual. Pete Sherpa and Fernando Ferrari from the outdoor grounds crew came ready to eat, and drink. I also served some wine with our meal.
Here are Helen Peparo and Dolma Sherpa – two of three who take care of my Friesians, Fell pony, and three Sicilian donkeys.
Here’s Chhewang Sherpa from my outdoor ground crew, and my housekeeper, Enma Sandoval.
My sister-in-law, Rita Christiansen, also stopped by to wish Laura well. Rita worked with me for many years as a business manager for me and for my company. Here she is with my longtime driver, Carlos Villamil. Rita is the wife of my late brother, George. We all miss him so dearly.
My champion Chow Chow show dog, Empress Qin, waits patiently for anything that falls to the ground – though she prefers more savory bites than sweet.
Here’s a nice photo of Laura and my driver, Rock Periera. Rock also retired from the New York City Police Department Detective Bureau earlier this year.
Enma, Laura, and Carlos
Here’s Pete and Phurba Sherpa starting off our buffet line, It was so nice to see everyone fill their plates – one, two and sometimes even three times.
I sliced the meat and placed it on the platters as people served themselves – both the steaks and chops went quickly.
All the food looks so excellent. I boiled the sweet potatoes first before I roasted them – they were completely devoured!
This is a great snapshot of my drivers – Rock, Carlos and Andres Velastegui.
Here’s another full plate – I was so happy everyone loved the food.
And here’s Laura, our guest of honor – Rita gave her a beautiful plant as a gift.
Carlos and Laura have become good friends over the years. Carlos has also worked with me for quite some time – more than 15-years.
My housekeeper, Sanu Sherpa, stopped to pose with Laura for this photo – everyone on my staff is very close.
You may recognize my head gardener, Ryan McCallister – here he is with Sanu.
I also planned a fun “grab bag” gift-giving activity – everyone lined up to pick something from the bins.
We lined everyone up according to employment seniority – it was fun to learn how long everyone has been working with me. My outdoor grounds crew foreman, Chhiring Sherpa, has been here at the farm for nearly 16-years. He’s very happy to be one of the first in line along with Chhewang who’s been here for 12-years and Phurba for 10.
Here’s Chhewang looking through the bins trying to decide what to “grab”. There are so many fun items from which to choose.
Here are Carlos and Fernando – colleagues and good friends. Fernando has been working with me for 21-years – first at our River Bend space in Stamford, Connecticut, then at the Westport, Connecticut studio, then the New York City studio and then here at the farm.
It was a wonderful luncheon and gathering. I, along with my entire staff, wish you all a safe and joyous holiday!
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