A Cozy Cottage Christmas Story

A Cozy Cottage Christmas Story

by 

Jennifer Grenko

This stream of consciousness story is being told as randomly as the pictures uploaded themselves from my camera.  It seems each image began jumping out of the camera, as if there was some sort of a contest.  It was as if each picture could not wait to tell it's story about the magical weekend...

A short time ago, I visited a tiny town called Mount Dora in the sunny, far-away land of Florida.  

Mount Dora is not far from a bigger, Magical Kingdom full of  Princesses, but that is not what I'm going to be telling you about.  

It sounds like an unlikely place for a queen to be living, in a cozy cottage and not a Castle.  

It might sound stranger still if I tell you we celebrated Christmas in November, but this is my story....

The lovely queen cast a spell over the cozy cottage and somehow, Christmas came early for each of us.

Look how sweetly she welcomed us into her cottage in the tiny kingdom.

Each cozy cottage invitee was made a queen for this special weekend too.

We saw girls in white dresses..








This is the cozy cottage... It looks like a normal cottage, only pinker and with some crazy magic never seen before.

There was a teddy bear ballerina riding a pink bike in her tutu and tiara.

Do normal cottages have pink Christmas wreathes before Thanksgiving?  They do not!

Look at the table of goodies and a beautiful snow queen project to be made...

Little gifts appeared everywhere...

The queens brought their craft supplies from far and wide in such beautiful boxes.

Enchanted art from all over the kingdom hung about the cottage, making everything bright.

Every corner and nook held something lovely... 

 

or cozy

  or vintage

or artful 

 or angelic

 

or pink

 

I quickly took a picture of myself in that cottage so that later on, I would know that it had not been a dream and that I really had been there. 

"Mirror, mirror on the wall, is this the coziest cottage of them all?"

Only believers of Santa and fairy tales could believe such a story and that such a place existed...

Pixies came from the forest to peek at our happy party and sprinkle pink pixie dust all about.

Ballerinas peeked out of slippers and you would swear you could see them blowing kisses - so happy they were that we had decorated their slippers for them.

 

Never was there a more inviting, cozy cottage.

When Christmas comes early, of course so do Christmas trees!

I saw the biggest pink marshmallows ever to be put in a pie!

A cozy cottage is always comfy...

and filled with lovely things...fit for 20 queens!

Pretty finery of days gone by...

We met the magical Mixie Chicks, Karen and Elaine, who are real live dollmakers,  and we learned to make a Snow queen pincushion doll!  I forgot to ask them if they had worked at the North Pole with Santa.

Here is my doll, waiting patiently as I design her dress.

Some of the Snow Queen fashion parade...

 They appear so happy with their hats and new dresses, don't they?  It's as if they're saying "How do I look?" and fishing for compliments. 

This is our Cozy Cottage Queen and lovely hostess, Karen Hillman.  Karen is such a talented artist and photographer and probably the most positive ball of energy I have ever seen.

She honestly looks more like a young fairy princess than a queen...

The gifts were never ending.

Every queen was presented with a lovely, fluffy white stole at our delicious luncheon.  No one could have anticipated such a generous and beautiful surprise.  The whole weekend was magical.

The Homecoming Court of Fabulosity made an appearance and rocked the house!

At the end of our visit, we had a pink champagne toast (but what else?).   There were so many blessings of friendship and fun.  

No one wanted it to end, but when it did, we shopped  in a magical 117 acre forest (more like a dusty meadow, really) called Rennigers.  At Rennigers, we found long lost treasures of Christmases past and old things that only cottage queens could love.

Some of us, who just could not leave yet, stayed and celebrated an early birthday.  Music rang throughout the tiny kingdom of Mount Dora that night.  We danced and laughed and rocked the house!

Until next November,  goodbye little cozy cottage... 

Stay Cozy until our return!!

Linking to Cindy's Romantic Home for Show and Tell Friday!