Holiday place setting

I wish that when you order food at a restaurant, you could order the place setting along with it.

(Sunset Magazine)

I would order one veggie omelette, served on this plate. Bloody Mary on the side, please. And that's perfection in the form of a New Year's Day brunch.

Christmas in Vermont

Christmas in Vermont? Hanukkah in Colorado or Massachusetts is more how I roll. But a good winter scene is truly non-dominational, wouldn't you agree?

Fireplace? Check. Rustic wood floors? Check. Comfortable couch? Check minus. It photographs nicely, but I can't decide if I'd actually want to sit on it. Maybe for a couple of minutes ... long enough to enjoy a cup of hot chocolate.

I'd probably reserve my more long-term lounging for the bed. It looks slightly more welcoming.

Country Living, via Apartment Therapy

Check the halls

When the weather is cold, rooms need to be extra cozy. In my opinion, nothing warms a room quite like a good check.

This room is doubling up on the checkered pieces, but something feels slightly off with the scale. Is it the small rug? The size of the chairs compared to the size of the couches? Regardless of the size issues, it's the couches I'm eying for this particular post.

Ahh, here's one that needs no tweaking at all. It's from Ginger Barber's house, and was included in the Cote de Texas check round-up I link to below.

A large-scale check done right can be like a well-worn pair of flannel pajama pants for the living room, don't you agree? Here it is again, this time in curtains in a breakfast nook.

As pleasing as the large patterns are, so too are the smaller scale checks in smaller doses. It might be a bed skirt:

Or a pillow:

Right now, I'm more into the high-contrast checks. Black and white, brown and white, and even navy and white. I don't discriminate, though. To see many more photos of checks of all different colors, check out this post on Cote de Texas. It's a virtual checkered rainbow!

If you can't stand the heat, then get out of the kitchen

A lot of old houses in New England have something I love: A fireplace in the kitchen.

I like the warm colors in this picture, but if it were my room, I'd put a more comfortable chair in front of the fire.

This one looks 1) really old and 2) like it would heat the whole kitchen. I think I would be tempted to make s'mores.

This one looks like a bakery. Imagine snow outside the window instead of leafy, summary greens.

Newer houses don't often have fireplaces in the kitchen (at least, not the ones I've seen on Trulia and in other listings.) I wonder why.

But, at first glance, this kitchen below looks like it might have a fireplace in it. It definitely looks warm. Maybe it's the antlers hanging over the range?

Here's another picture of a kitchen/dining room that looks like it might have a fireplace in it (and I don't know, maybe this room does have one on the other side of the table). In this case, it's the slipcovered arm chairs that make me think of fires and other warm thoughts.

Where I'd like to eat Thanksgiving leftovers

Hot chocolate decorating

When it comes to winter, I like my rooms like I like my hot chocolate: Warm, cozy and in various shades of brown and cream.

Hot chocolate with cinnamon sticks:

Hot chocolate with freeze-dried marshmallows:

Steamed milk with vanilla flavoring. Not technically hot chocolate, but they're related:

And the grand finale - hot chocolate made with ghirardelli and topped with whipped cream:

While we're on the topic, would you believe that I drank hot chocolate from a mug just like this for my entire childhood and never even knew what was going on?

I think my parents' version was bears, though. I had friends whose parents had mugs from the same "collection," and I was always sure to point out the coincidence.