Happy third day of Christmas! Did you know that traditionally the holiday is not quite over? I intend to celebrate as in olden days (happy golden days of yore) by keeping Christmas going until New Year’s Day at least.  This holiday season has zipped right by, and I still have so many holiday related posts I would like to share here on the blog. I can’t believe I am just now getting a chance to post my Christmas kitchen tour! Here is a look at how I created a very merry cottage and farmhouse style Christmas kitchen this year!

Welcome to the kitchen where family and friends love to gather for holiday festivities! Our kitchen is not “high end,”  but rather a comfy and cozy cottage style kitchen that lends itself to a little bit of vintage Christmas kitsch and even country and primitive holiday style decor. I finished decorating the kitchen just in time for the yearly caroling event I host each year for my music students, family and friends. This is when the spirit of Christmas seems to come alive in our home and the kitchen is full of children of all ages helping themselves to goodies, cocoa and cider.

 

Having a white neutral kitchen that already has a lot of vintage elements made it extremely easy and fun to decorate for Christmas. For 2017 I had a new cozy Christmas corner to decorate due to the addition of the banquette window dining area we added this summer, and a fun retro cabinet filled with Rae Dunn pottery and vintage dishes. All I really had to do was add some vintage Santas and snowmen, knee hugger elves, bottle brush trees and touches of plaid and grain stripe/ticking fabric to make it festive. Some cute thrifted gingerbread lights and a vintage ticking flag banner from the Target dollar spot are also playful Christmas touches.

Vintage Christmas blow molds are must haves for any Christmas collector! This pair fits perfectly in the corner of the breakfast nook window seat.

For my centerpiece on the island I filled a pretty thrifted poinsettia bowl full of all the ornaments that were on my grandparent’s first Christmas tree back in 1953 and the ones my Dad grew up enjoying on all his Christmas trees over the years. They are so special to me!

 

Here you can see a view of my extra large antique dough bowl which holds my “Christmas goose” in a bed of winter greens and ironstone platters. You can also see the end cabinet and window area which I have crammed full of vintage and farmhouse cottage Christmas goodness which we will explore a little further down in this post.

I was feeling rather uninspired at the first of December and a little unsure about how to decorate the kitchen this year. The past few years I haven’t done much to the kitchen for Christmas because it was kind of blah, but with the addition of the corner eating nook the whole look of the kitchen changed, and this year called for some extra festive decor. I wanted to do something fun on the odd low cabinet and counter that is rarely used. I was rearranging some things in the dining room and decided to move the salvaged lead glass window that I was using as a faux fireplace “screen” to this window in the kitchen. I simply took down the blinds and propped the window secure in the opening. I made a little swag for the top as valance of sorts.  I am loving the red grain stripe ribbon and burlap bow so much!

With the addition of an old crock, salvaged corbel, vintage kitchen scale, and my favorite chip board Santa things were starting to come together.

I love to incorporate primitive and country farmhouse style to the kitchen at Christmas, so when I found a primitive shelf with drawers at the consignment shop a couple of weeks ago  it was the perfect piece to finish this whole area. The shelf was a brownish green color so I quickly gave it a makeover with some red chalk paint and styled it up for Christmas with a big ironstone pitcher full of Christmas greenery, antique rolling pins and spoons and some wooden “peppermint sticks.” I opened the drawers to display some vintage transferware, gingerbread men and primitive style Christmas greenery. The vintage “Cooky” cutter box was a yard sale find in late October so I was excited to have another “new” find to use here in the kitchen. I really love this space!

The Santa gingerbread mold is a vintage Longeberger collectible that I found at a rummage sale just last month. I love it in this vignette. I decided to go with the gingerbread theme in my kitchen since I also found the gingerbread ornament below and some little gingerbread lights while out junkin’ right after Thanksgiving.

Some other great treasures which I found just in time for Christmas include a little red rimmed ironstone pitcher and two vintage Pyrex mugs with a red design.

These little mugs and  hotel transferware plate with a green design are worth their weight in gold to me!

So many cute gingerbread finds! Oh how I miss the days before gluten intolerance when gingerbread was still on my menu! Nevertheless I am feel much better these days so I will just enjoy my little decorations for the nostalgia and charm.

I couldn’t find a tree that was just the right size for this vintage crock so I shaped some old cheap leftover greenery into a makeshift tree and decorated it with handmade crocheted snowflakes, cinnamon applesauce ornaments and grungy candy canes. I shared the story of making the easy cinnamon applesauce ornaments and how I decorated my previous home with some of these same homespun pieces here.

This vintage 1940’s cabinet is the best for displaying my Rae Dunn collection! I don’t have a lot of holiday pieces so I just added some vintage finds to the cabinet and changed some mugs for some Christmas whimsy.

 

 

I found a little vintage celluloid snowman and number 24 sheep tag at Vintage Market Days back in October, and another little ceramic snowman recently at an antiques shop. They will be chillin’ here in the cabinet until March!For 2018 I am on a mission to find lots of small vintage snowmen and Mrs. Claus collectibles to pack this cabinet full next Christmas!

The rest of the cabinet is full of my every day Rae Dunn pottery and a few other fun touches for the holidays. (If you like my little Mrs. Claus, don’t miss this post: Let’s Hear It For Mrs. Claus The Unsung Christmas Heroine!)

 

 

I did score some fabulous plaid Rae Dunn mugs and a snack canister this season. I have displayed the canister and a mug on top of the cabinet with some pretty vintage striped bowls and other farmhousey kitchen finds.

The other two mugs are on the open shelves above the coffee station along with two other adorable vintage Santas.

This year I have displayed my Coca-Cola village in the open shelves on the cabinet below the coffee station where I usually keep a portion of my large collection of ironstone. I had to pack a few pieces away to make room for the village but I left some out for interest.

A few of my vintage Lefton figures look adorable displayed around town!

I used a couple more vintage Lefton figures in this vintage candy gumball “cloche” I made. This fast and easy project was one of my favorites this season!

As you can see there are many Christmas treasures around my cottage kitchen! I really tried to use all of my decorations this year because I have decided that If am not going to use them, then there is no need to hoard them in totes in the basement. It took a bit longer to decorate since I got everything out but it has been fun revisiting some decorations and collectibles I haven’t used the past few seasons.  I will be keeping my decorations out until the week after New Year’s since we have family coming in for a late Christmas gathering. I really haven’t had much of a chance to enjoy all of them so having them out for a couple of more weeks will be nice. Do you keep decorating all the way through Christmas? I do! And I even decorate through New Year’s Day, since I often find many treasures on sale the week after Christmas!

I hope you have enjoyed my cottage Christmas kitchen tour! If you would like to create a similar look in your kitchen for Christmas next year, I have done some online searching for cute vintage cottage kitchen and Christmas decor, and I added some affiliate links below for your convenience.

Merry Christmas and a happy New Year from my home to yours!

Amber

Shop For Fun Vintage Christmas and Kitchen Junk Here:

Vintage Kitchen Scale

Farmhouse Cotton and Pine Swag with Red Ticking Grain Stripe and Burlap Bow

Vintage Celluloid Snowmen

Vintage Lefton Christmas Angels

 

Vintage Gumball Machine (Snow Globe or Christmas Cloche)

Vintage Blow Mold Snow Man

Vintage Cooky (Cookie) Cutter Gingerbread Man 

 

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