The Glow of Christmas... elegant holiday scented candles both by and for Preppies

Preppy-candle Perfection by Ralph Lauren...but of course...

L'Object has THE most elegant candle containers imaginable!

One of my all-time favorite timeless candle profferings: Rigaud, ahh.

Michel candles are easy to find and easy on the nose with their scents...

Seriously-elegant and yet evocative of nature from Michael Aram

India Hicks gives island lifestyles effortless elan- so coral chic!

Silvered pagoda-style is oh, so Charlotte Moss indeed- love this!

Christmas and candles just go oh, so well together don't they?

We've safely taken them off of our Christmas trees (thankfully) as delightful as those effusive Victorians found them to be with bringing fir trees to the forefront of holiday celebration decor'.

Now candles glow on our mantelpieces, sideboards, windowsills and are liberally scattered around various tables- dining tables, coffee tables, bedside tables, kitchen tables and such. My favorite is having a single scented candle glowing away on the entrance hall's table to greet family, friends and guests with...ahh, how lovely... especially as the nights get darker so much earlier this time of year.

Scented candles are wonderful hostess gifts, stocking stuffers and the "just a little something" circes Preppy ladies especially enjoy gifting one another with throughout the holiday season.

As any Preppy's nose knows, there's scented candles and then there's scented candles.

Other folks favor scents such as Country Cinnamon Apple and Winter Memory Melody whereas Preppies favor scents titled Persimmon, Amaryllis, Frasier Fir and Cypres. The closer to the actual scent authenticity and the further away from Norman Rockwellesque Americana-verbage is definitely the better within Preppydom. As well, the further from the look of a glass Mason jar indicates which candles are found within Preppy homes and darling little gift bags.

Beautiful scents emanating from elegantly traditional containers, or even traditional with a twist kind of containers, are definitely perfectly Preppy candles!

Above are images of a few of my favorite candles to light and enjoy along with some new versions from lifestyle designers who are totally getting-it-right with not only clothing, accessories and shoes as well as home furnishings but also...with candles too!

Happy Holiday Season everyone and enjoy the glow of candles these winter months of 2011...

Thanksgiving and Preppies...Tradition indeed from menus to wardrobes to quite memorable memories

Quick snap-shot before heading out, for the first time to Thanksgiving Dinner at... a restaurant! Wearing what probably 90% of other Preppy ladies are wearing today: old cashmere sweater twinset, long plaid wool skirt, tassled loafer-pumps with coordinating belt and strands of pearls but of course.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

This autumn has been so incredibly-busy, much more than usual, that I am truly thankful for one day to have completely "off" from all the varieties of work and responsibility within my own small life's goings-on. Wheh...

And I am also thankful for you, dear readers, who have been with me from the beginning of this blog to the newest regular-reader who just emailed me last week; as always, I so appreciate each and every one of you and hope that today you are enjoying a peaceful, restful holiday as well!

Thanksgiving and Preppy go hand-in-hand don't they? It's essentially one of the few holidays left which has remained mostly "traditional" in its annual manifestations however off-track they now are from the first Americana meal of thanksgiving, i.e. travel, turkey on the menu, family and friends around, parades and football on the television, most places closed, themed hues of orange, gold and brown plus candles lit on the table and large porcelain platters put into use.

And...the same recipes used over and over again...Preppies are not foodie innovators for the most part as we all know. Preppies actually really aren't foodies at all for the most part and so, the rare ones who are must get a tad bit disappointed with the traditional (read "dull" on my family's part) Thanksgiving meal year after year. Hence, this is one of the reasons that during my married life of 20 years now, I have only cooked one complete meal by myself for Thanksgiving Day. It shocked my husband and father and frankly me as well. It was a "one hit wonder" that's for sure! And a wonder that it was edible at all.

Years ago, my mother, aunts, grandmothers, great-grandmothers, great-great-grandmothers and so forth and so on had terrific help in the kitchen with serving and clean-up for holidays and also for actually every day's mealtime needs until my immediate family moved up-north during the late1970's resulting in our having assistance around the house being downscaled to mother's two maids coming-in twice a week. All of a sudden, our meals were anything dumped out of cans, slapped into sandwiches or microwaved from freezer boxes unless Dad took us out to eat.

Turkeys for our holiday fare once up north were hysterical productions with my late mother attempting to cook them herself. One had bare patches from the pieces of bread she'd slapped on its side after reading somewhere that this was a great way to cook a turkey. Huh? Another time, she placed a turkey into a brown paper bag which was soaked in water but still proceeded to smoke up our kitchen...yet another sure idea from some magazine or not-well-tested cookbook.

All of us kids just wanted to go out somewhere for Thanksgiving Dinner and call it a day.

Which James and I did today. Which was wonderful to do with us having a nice, quiet just-us Thanksgiving here in Savannah this year. We went to a beautiful buffet that melded all the traditional menu items with the more-gourmet, left a nice tip for our waitress and took pre and post meal walks all around the historic district on a very beautiful autumn afternoon.

We really enjoyed staying within our neighborhood today which was another wonderful dimension of this particular Thanksgiving with having no-traveling-hassles...there were just enough tourists, SCAD students with their parents and assorted locals with or without their dogs, bicycles, assorted being-outside-accessories out and about to make the streets and park squares in the historic district feel lively and yet still neighborly.

As we strolled through one of the squares after our meal, an old guy dressed in Santa-red togs sitting on a wrought iron park bench was playing the most elementary of tunes such as Old MacDonald Had A Farm, Mary Had A Little Lamb, Chopsticks sweetly on a flute and...

...it was quirky, unexpected, charming and such a delightful ending note flourish on a Savannah Thanksgiving afternoon...

Again, wishing a very Happy Thanksgiving to you all!