My Christmas Outfits

 This will be a post with mainly pictures. Thought I'd just show you my Christmassy outfits before they become irrelevant in the new year.
The problem is that the days before Christmas are so dark and there are few moments with decent light to take good pictures. So I regret to say that most of the pictures in this post are of quite a poor quality, but think they do catch the spirit of the season.
First there's the picture above. I'm wearing a knitted cardigan with a silk blouse that goes ever so well with it. A hat in matching color. What you cannot see is that it has a matching skirt but that will feature later on.


I wore this outfit to a Christmas market in Germany in the end of November. Kind of the beginning of the dressing for the festive season for me. I wore a coat trimmed with black fox fur with it.

Next 'thing' was the Christmas party at work:

I'm wearing a late 40's early 50's rayon crepe and voile dress in a dark blue shade. Love the bodice!

My parents have a huge tree (3 meters) every year with only silver decorations, and I helped decorating it as always. I wore a red day dress I usually wear around Christmas when I have to actually do things.

A few days before Christmas, on midwinter, I had a small party at my place. Everybody dressed up in style.

Next to my regular guests from the Netherlands I had the pleasure of welcoming Laurence (who had the most amazing blog on the 1950's! http://lostin1950.blogspot.com/)  and Sylvain from France who were staying in Amsterdam.

The ultimate Christmas material for me is velvet. I wore this ensemble I'd bought a few weeks before for an abosulute bargain price. I'ts an early 30's evening dress with matching bolero jacket in a stunning silk velvet in a very bright red.

My curls had already died that morning so I opted for an updo with a comb. To fill up the punging neckline I wore a green and black necklace with art deco earrings.

The party was quite informal so there was no real need for a full length dress but on the other hand, why not?

I lighted some real candles in the tree:

 Now over to Christmas itself:

On Christmas eve I wore a rayon print dress with the cardigan from the aforementioned knitted set. I made my mother wear the 1940's dress I gave her quite some time ago.

That evening and the next we opened out gifts. A lot of vintage goodies for me.

Some of these could be used for the outfits of the days to come.

I got this huge suitcase for hats. Bit bigger than expected. Now I need bigger hats ;)

The outfit for Christmas day, 1930's red velvet again. This time in a much darker shade, combined with a brooch I'd got the evening before.

Another gift was this shoe made of white chocolate, way to pretty to eat.

On to boxing day (second Christmas day here in the Netherlands)

Here you can see the skirt that belonges to the cardigan.  It was way to warm to wear them as a set though.The elastic band has to be replaced, so I wore it with a belt.

Because we had Christmas dinner with family this day I dressed for dinner. Again in velvet, dark blue this time, with the most amazing sleeves. Not a vintage but made by me several years ago form an old pattern. Wore the brooch and earrings I'd gotten the days before.

I put my hair up, and it turned out quite Edwardian.

And that's it for now. But the festive season isn't quite over yet so who knows what may follow. I've already got too many options for new years eve............

Wonder what I will wear ;)

Birthe

A weekend of family visits and heirlooms

A few weeks ago my father and I decided to spend a weekend calling on some family. It were two great days of talking about the old days, looking at old photographs and collecting some family heirlooms for my house.

The family history of my fathers side of the family is quite well documented. My grandfather made several albums with photo's (even some lovely CDVs from the 19th c.) and stories. My uncle and cousin digitized them and made them into books. But eventhough I've seen many pictures this weekend brought some new things. They were in the private albums of my grandparents and my great-aunt.

On Saturday we visited my grandparents. I feel they had a big influence on how I grew up out and the things I now like. It always feels like comming home a bit. I've spend so many hollidays there, when my parents had to work. I loved it there, life was very simple, wholesome, and old fashioned: healthy but good food, long walks, books with pictures, classical music, dolls for dressing up and stories read or told to me. I even had my own clothes there (made from my grandmothers old dresses). Mainly skirts & dresses.

This is my grandmother around 1949, love the print of flowers an ferns. She wore a lot of floral dresses throuhout het life. Probably why I love them too.

My grandfather will turn 90 in spring and my gran 85 but they are still very active. They've known each other since the mid 40's and still so cute together!

I found this picture of them from around 1950 in te album of my great-aunt Mimi the next day.

I still wear things from my grandmothers wardrobe from time to time. This time she gave me a crochet cardigan/jacket. I loved the color. Though it was likely made in the 70's it goes ever so well with older styles.

Now to the true heirlooms, not clothes but linens, also somehting I've really taken a fancy to since moving into my own appartment:

My grandmother had talked of a long tablecloth that had belonged to her mother. She did not know what to do with it an wanted to dontate it to a hotel. I did not want to let that happen.

So I got it from her. It is a linnen damask with flowers and dots. It probably dates from 1926-1928.

 (I'll explain why). With it came some napkins only one of which atucally matched.

 

The next day we went to my great-aunt on the other side of the country. She is my grandmothers younger sister. She had a bag with a letter adressed to me:

Mimi Jansen, your great-grandmother married Willem te Poel on the 14th of November 1928, after they had met 3 years earlier.

She must have made the embroidered contents of this bag in those 3 years. So about from 1926- about 90 years ago now.

So nice you want to have these sheets and pillowcases now!

(In February 1933 Mimi te Poel died, 5 weeks after I was born)

The contents of the bag were 4 sets of a sheets and pillowcases form my great-grandmothers trousseau. All monogrammed MJ, all four with a different band of lace or embroidery.

 

Monogram on the tablecloth

 

 

 

I knew about the pretty bedlinens from my grandmother who uses some of them still in the guest bedroom.

This are my great-grandparents at their wedding in 1928.

I love old bedlinens. I still prefer old wool blankets instead of a duvet, so I can really use them. Pillowcases are easy to find but sheets are far more difficult. Also the idea of sleeping under somthing my great-grandmother made herself makes it rather special.

 

This is the set I've put on my bed first. So much handwork. I thought the flowers looked a bit like Chritsmas bells so appropriate for the season.

 

Some pics of the styles of the bedlinens (just the pillowcases, but the sheets have the same decoration)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Just a little about my great grandmother, it is the little I know:

Maria Philomena Augustina (Mimi) Jansen was born on the 10th of august 1903 in Dinxperlo. She was the second daughter of Heinrich Jansen and Auguste Schulze-Tast.

 

My great-great grandparents at the time of their wedding around 1901

 

There are quite a lot of pictures from her youth. On this one from 1907 her (left) and her older sister Cilly are dressed in such cute matching outfits.

 

The oldest two sisters often had matching outfits or aprons. Like on this picture taken in the garden.

So many pictures were taken in the garden.

This one from 1916 with three of her sisters (second from the left). Such long locks!

 

 

Well on to the 20's and bobbed hair. I had never seen this picture of Mimi probably taken in the year of her marriage. Love her Art Deco scarf!

This was taken a few years later with her chubby baby boy Heini. Such a happy picture...one of the last pictures of her I have seen.

As she died so young I don't know anything of her personality, neither do her children. The thing that remains is the pictures from what looks like a happy childhood and handcrafted linens, that have probably not suffered to much because she died before they could wear out.....

 

This picture shows my grandmother making a carpet (she made the one in my living room too) in the late 40's with a picture of her mother hanging of the wall of her fathers house behind her. Love her sweater!

 

 

And as it is nearly Christmas: pictures from the Christmas season.

 

My grandmother, late 40's early 50's. White Christmas!

 

Cheeky: My great-aunt fastening her stocking

 

 

And I just adore this picture of my great aunt (secon from the left) with her friends under the Christmas tree. Do wonder what they are drinking.

 

Hope to get back to you soon with some Christmas outfits!

And if not: Merry Christmas :)

 

Birthe

 

Sinterklaas evening & outfit

In the Netherlands children do not get their presents form Santa Claus but from Sinterklaas. Many mistake him for the Dutch Santa and automatically think it is part of Christmas. Well it certainly is NOT!

The week before we did meet a Sinterklaas/Nikolaus at a German Christmas market though. Ofcourse a picture had to be taken:

Sinterklaas is the Dutch name for Saint Nicolas, bishop of Myra. His dying day on the 6th of December has been celebrated  in the Netherlands and Belgium either on the morning of the 6th or the evening of the 5th, for hundreds of years (long befor Santa was 'born'). The oldest tradition is that of placing a shoe under the chimney where good children will find somehting sweet and bad children a bag of salt.

A more modern tradition is that of Sinterklaas evening, where people bring eachother gifts and unwrap them together.

 

This year I celebrated Sinterklaas with my friends from Club Interbellum. The gifts we brought were either from the interwar period or old-fashioned in style. Everyone made such an effort, we ended up with 4 to 5 gifts each.

 

Martine helped me to prepare my house for 15 guests. At the end they came later than expected and we got bored....

I had all the people stacked into my little living room but it was a lot of fun. 

 

 

Steve even dressed up as Sinterklaas ;)

 

Here I'm unwrapping a gift.

 

 

It was also my friend Myrtle's birthday, so ofcourse she got some special gifts :)

 

Marinka got a book with the title: the Terrorists, sounds modern, but it isn't, very interesting....

 

 

These were the lovely gifts I got. Chair included!

 

All my guests:

 

The ladies with Sinterklaas:

 

 

And the gentlemen with drinks ;)

 

Now about my outfit: I wore a green dress from the 1940's. It's in a rayon crepe with som amazing details like beading, shirring and a double buckle on the belt.  As Sinterklaas is a homely festivity a long evening dress would not have been appropriate.

 

 

To add to the homely feel I added a crochet cardigan/jacket. But more about were it came from in my next post!

 

 

That's it for now! I'll be back with some family history and I'll try to get to doing a Christmas outfits post somewhere next week.

 

Birthe