Holiday soirée and day of giving back

Today/tonight is our annual Open House and Soirée at Pomegranate. Our little homestead is all dressed up for the holidays, we have tons of new merchandise in (we unpacked about 45 boxes just yesterday), and we have lots of treats and goodies for you, all day long and into the evening (until about 7:30). Best of all, 10% of all proceeds today go to charity: our recipient this year is Saving Grace. Stop by, eat, drink and be merry. And shop for a cause.

Audrey styles

Every kid has her movie idol, and mine was Audrey Hepburn. Ohhh, how I wanted to be like her. At age 9, behind the glasses and the goofy haircuts my mother gave me (sorry mom, but I know you haven't figured out that world wide web thingie yet), I thought I saw a glimmer of an emerging Audrey. Yep. Didn't happen. Yes, she was beautiful and elegant and graceful (and grew old that way, too, dang her!) but more than that -- unless she had some dark secrets behind the mask -- she had a generosity of spirit and energy and dedication to good works that you don't often see.

Here's a great post about Audrey from another blog that I love: Paris Breakfasts

Tuscan style Christmas lighting

The dear hubs always sets up my favorite lighting at Christmas, although calling it "tuscan style" might be stretching it a bit. If you've traveled in Europe at all, you know how dramatic and truly enchanting all the uplighting is at night. Every important building and ruin, it seems, is bathed in warm light in the evening. It's indescribably beautiful.

We've adapted the look for Bend for the season, and place uplights under a few of the large pine trees on our property. I honestly enjoy this more than the miles of lights wrapped around every house. Robert gets the outdoor ground lights at Home Despot (they're staked and ready to go). He uses outdoor spotlights (not floods) in each one, and recommends two or three per tree, close to the trunk, shining straight up inside the tree. He puts them on timers (you don't want to forget and have an all-night light show), and it's absolutely lovely. Not too bright or obnoxious (because we all love to look at the night sky), but a subtle way to decorate your landscape for the evening. So far beyond the blinking Santas.

More music picks

I've been on the search for new music offerings for Pomegranate, and have found some great new CDs, arriving in a few days. Meanwhile, in an October post about the poor music industry (not talkin' about Taylor Swift or Lady Gaga here), I promised to share some unusual finds that you can only get via iTunes. It's just my weird taste: you might take a listen and think I'm Lady Caca!

So, my latest love is Plus de sucre by JP Nataf. I don't who this guy is, but he's really good. It doesn't even matter if you don't understand the lyrics (all in French). The last song on the album is a little bit stoned-rocker for my taste, but what the hey: it only costs $9.99 to download the whole CD. He has one delicious song that was chosen for the Acoustic France album by Putumayo, which we carry and sell a lot of (hey guess what? someone at Putumayo thinks we might be the top-selling store nationwide for their Paris album -- hard to believe, but we do love it and sell plenty). Anyway, it's worth checking out the whole album. I've been playing it a lot while working on the computer. Then I switch to the all-baroque radio channel in iTunes. See? A bit odd.

Hey baby: this sale is yours

Yesterday I did a little flipperoo* in our tiny, but sweet baby department upstairs at Pomegranate. Realized that we needed to kind of rethink that whole area and start fresh... so, I went around and marked down almost everything in the baby department -- by half or more. Yep, it's almost all on sale, except for our adorable Jelly Cat dogs that just arrived a week ago. Good time to shop for baby gifts (love the little organic cotton knit pants and tops, soft soft baby blankets...). Stop by and see!

* professional retail term: to move everything and redo

Shop locally, shop small: the antidote to Black Friday

Wild horses couldn't drag us to a pre-dawn mob scene at one of the big boxes. I don't care how popular Malibu Barbie is!

But we are opening at 9am today at Pomegranate, with mimosas, hot spiced cider, donuts and treats. It can be your little respite in a sea of madness. A place to come and enjoy shopping, listen to music, take your time. We have lots of new things on our shelves (vintage and new goodies), plenty on sale, and, we are happy to gift bag or wrap your purchases in our wonderful holiday papers and ribbons. For free. Doesn't get better than that.

If you're out shopping this weekend, shop locally.

Holiday decorating: article in the "Bulletin" today

So excited! Article in today's Bulletin ("At Home" section) about creative holiday decorating, featuring three local shops/designers, including Pomegranate. Happy happy happy. Get a copy or (hopefully) click here.