A Festive Jar Of Walnuts

This is a simple but very effective way to brighten up a shelf, ledge, mantelpiece or windowsill for the festive season. 

Just fill a kilner jar with walnuts (pine cones or chesttnuts would work either), tie a gingham ribbon round the neck of the jar and place it on a surface with a backdrop of holly, ivy and other greenery of your choice.

Homemade Christmas Food and Drink Gifts - Part Two

I am spectacularly late on this. Seriously. The production time on this post would rival that spent on any Hollywood blockbuster. The budget was ever so slightly lower though. 

On the 14th November, on the spur of the moment, I decided I would film the making of my homemade foodie gifts. What I neglected to take into account was the amount of editing a spur of the moment vlog needs. Especially when there are countless star appearances by Number Three. He even attempted a few stunts, but I literally caught him in time. 

But anyway, back to the matter at hand - making a few cheap and cheerful, quick and easy food gifts.

Are you in need of some last minute gifts? Does your creativity need a culinary outlet? Or do you just need a way to get rid of all the bottles and jars you've been hoarding all year? 

Whatever the answer, you have come to the right place. Take a look at my short vlog and see the gorgeous, tasty edible gifts you can make in no time, with very little effort, no cooking and very few ingredients. 

In this vlog you'll learn how to make:

 - Candy Sugar in Grand Marnier, for pepping up punch, mulled wine black tea or coffee

 - Homemade Vanilla Sugar, for adding an extra depth of flavour to baking

 - Layered Seasonings in a Jar or Grinder

 - Homemade Seeded Brown Bread Mix, just add buttermilk before baking (get the full recipe here)

You'll be amazed how much you can make in five minutes!

Your shopping list:
Caster sugar
Vanilla pods
Orange liqueur
Candy sugar
Sea salt (coarse)
Black pepper
Oregano
Chili flakes
Brown flour
White plain flour
Bicarbonate of soda (bread soda)
Fine salt
A selection of seeds (linseed, poppy, pumpkin)

P.S. In an ideal world (or on a better organised blog) you would find here at the end of the post some lovely printables to pin, print or download. But this is the real world, my real world to  be exact, so maybe there'll be printables next year. If I think of it on time.

An Old-Fashioned Christmas for Us

The commercialisation of Christmas bothers me more with each passing year. Maybe it is because I am getting older. Maybe it is because Christmas is being forced upon us earlier and earlier in the year. Maybe it is because of phrases like 'the religious side of Christmas' (hello! it is a religious celebration, only existing because of Christianity. The commercial side is the add-on). 

Whatever the root cause, I have been aching for an old-fashioned Christmas for years now. A Christmas with a nativity play and carols, with hearty homemade food, a tree dressed in decorations with a history. A Christmas of reading and walks and board games, of card games and candlelight and Christmas music in the background.

That is my wish for this Christmas. We will be at home in our own house, The Bavarian, our three sons and I. We're having friends over for drinks tomorrow, we're spending Christmas Eve and Christmas Day by ourselves. We'll have sincere gifts, nice homey meals and good wine.

We won't have new PJs, a Christmas Eve box or a mountain of presents. But we will have candlelight and snuggles on the sofa. We'll have 'It's A Wonderful Life" and games of Scrabble and Uno. Basically, we'll relax. What a perfectly old-fashioned thing to do at Christmas.  

Cocoa and Knoedelbrot

I though I was doing things right, going to bed with a hotwater bottle and a book at ten pm. But here I am at twenty past midnight, wide awake, drinking cocoa and with the word knoedelbrot* stuck in my mind. 

Not being able to sleep is not a thing that happens to me. Outside of late pregnancy, I have only once gotten up in the middle of the night because it was preferable to lying snug in my bed. But tonight my mind is racing with unwritten to do lists. Only fours days till Christmas. I really must. I can't forget to. What about the. Will I remember to. 

I know that none of these things really matter. We have enough in the house to keep us fed for the few days the shops are closed. The presents are, all bar one, bought and stashed away. Santa never wrapped my presents when I was a child, so I don't think the children will mind if he doesn't get round to wrapping theirs. There will be presents under the tree. Good one at that.

We are not having visitors after the 23rd, so no cleaning needs doing. The tree and other decorations are up. The Christmas mugs have been hauled up from the cellar. 

THE STOCKINGS! Jesus, where are the stockings? I was about to type that everything Christmas-related has been brought up from the cellar, but the stockings....I haven't seen the stockings! [Adds stockings (seach cellar or buy new) to list]

OK. New plan. New list.

1. Scrap all other lists

2. Do not make mental lists being made while not being able to sleep

3. Make easy meal plan for 21st to 26th and stick to it

4. Put Christmas books, dvds, cds and board games in one spot in sitting room

5. Make final trip to post office and supermarkets (buy stockings!) on Monday

6. Do not forget the knoedelbrot

7. Forget about remembering the knoedelbrot and go to sleep

*Knoedelbrot is chopped up stale bread rolls used for making bread dumplings, Semmelknoedel, the one food Number One has asked for this Christmas.

Christmas in One Day

I have an ambitious plan for today. I am going to organise Christmas. 

Tomorrow we are getting the tree. 

Today everything else is being done. 

ALL the presents will be bought. 

ALL the presents will get wrapped. 

The goose will get ordered from one butcher. 

The special Christmas Eve sausages will be ordered from another butcher.

The decorations will be brought up from the cellar. 

The Christmas CDs will be found.

The cards will be written and posted. 

Love Actually will be watched.

Mulled wine will be drunk.

From nought to Christmas in 24 hours.

Wish me luck. 

Homemade Festive Food Gifts

I don't know why but Christmas is very much about food, isn't it? Much more so than any other day of the year. We plan for ages in advance what we are going to eat, we do mountains of food shopping and we give and receive hampers. I love all of that, but I think I enjoy the hamper making best - all the decisions of what to make, wondering which combinations to give people and how o decorate it all.

Back in my student days I worked in Magill's delicatessen in Dublin and used to put together dozens of hampers in the run up to Christmas. The days were long and the shop was cold and by Christmas I was sick of the sight of cellophane and sticky tape, but I never tired of the food. Chutneys, relishes, jams, cheese crackers, spice mixes, Stollen, pasta, Pannetone and beautiful marzipan creations passed through my hands into the baskets and made their way under other people's Christmas trees.

The inspiration I gathered in Magills has contributed to my love of making homemade food gifts for friends at Christmas. It is such a satisfying thing to do - to take a jar and fill it with lots of good things, seal it, pretty it up with a ribbon and a label and bring it to a friend. 

If you're not a jam-maker or a chutney lover, fear not. There are plenty of other options - from homeamde chocolates to spice mixes and crackers. I'll be posintg tips, tricks and recipes for homemade food gifts over the next few days. I've even made a little video for you of some of my favourite quick and easy edible gifts. Maybe some the of inspiration I gathered will pass over to you!

The Arrival Of Advent With Its Wreaths, Calendars and Cookies

By now I have made a fair few mentions of Advent and the traditions that go with it here. Since last week I have been busy as a beaver with all sorts of crafts projects as well general making and baking, with the result that the house looks great and smells delicious. 

My Husarenkrapfen - jam-filledhazelnut biscuits

I'm quite content in myself knowing that, come what may before Christmas, the house has a basic level of festive appearance and there is always something tasty to be eaten with a cuppa. The nearer we get to Christmas, the more the scent of a cinnamon and clove candle will fill the house and the flicker of my real-log-fire dvd in the will be noticable in the background. (Oh, how I miss a real fire in Winter!). The Christmas decorations and the tree will be put up, visitors will begin to arrive and those cups of coffee will be replaced with mulled wine. 

But back to the here and now - last week I wrote about my salvaged shutters and how I hoped to turn them into some form of decoration for the house throughout Advent. I was sure, as I am with every project I begin, that I would find the time to decorate in leisure. By Saturday one of the shutters had been dusted, scrubbed and freed from as much dead ivy as possible. Then came the hard part - how to decorate it. 

My head was buzzing with ideas of my own as well as with inspiration from my Pinterest boards. And so Sunday morning saw me sat on the living room floor surrounded by ribbons, wreaths, stars and snowmen, candles, jars and pine cones. I spent a happy hour or so fiddlling about and trying to bring my ideas to life. My original plan to go with a green and silver theme just didn't look right in our red and white living room. The end result is more cosy chalet than sleek elegance, but I like it. It works here. 

The following day, Monday, Operaton Advent Calendar kicked off. Since moving into our house five years ago, we have built up a lovely Advent calendar tradition. I decorate the stairs in ribbons, fairy lights and a garland and, once the children are in bed, on the eve of December 1st I hang the homemade Advent calendar. 

This year the calendar is filled with a mixum-gatherum of toffees, chocolates, Christmas tree shaped pasta, mini bath salts and a few tiny little toys. Other years it has been filled with Playmobil figures and their tiny accessories or with collectable stickers. 

Seeing the boys go to bed excited and wake the next morning even more excited about something so simple is wonderful. It gives me a lovely warm, motherly feeling to know that they love this tradition of ours as much as I do. It is a little like a rehersal for Christmas Eve. 

Zazzle Personalised Gifts Review

It may only be mid-November, but Christmas is definitely in the air. I love this time of year - the planning, the organising, the making and baking. It is quietly festive. No rush and bustle. No need to go shopping or be bombarded with Christmas music. I prefer to keep the TV off and live a bit of a hermit lifestyle In November. I craft and  plan, light cinnamon-scented candeles and drink lots of tea. Then, in the last few days before Christmas I dive into the Christmas spirit with music, last minute (but carefully planned) shopping, Christmas films and lots of hot port. 

This seaon my planning got a kick start when I was asked to review a few personalised products by Zazzle. In mid October I made my selection on the Zazzle website. I could have spent days on it! There is so much choice, both in the range of products and in the choice of personalisation designs. You can even upload your own photo or design and use that. 

I would like to point out that if you are using one of the Zazzle templates, make sure to personalise it completely. The gift tags I ordered have text on both sides. I didn't notice and only changed one side, so the other still has Zazzle's text on there. So that is one little thing to double check before you finish placing your order. 

A week later the parcels began to pile in and I was thrilled with everything I'd chosen. A cute monogrammed notebook for a friend, a t-shirt for The Bavarian, an inspirational print for my craft room and a set of stickers for my homemade preserves.

Finally my main purchase, a tea tray, arrived. I had chosen the design from Zazzle, selcted the colour - a nice festive red that will go well with my kitchen all year - and added our family surname, Zinnecker, and initial, Z. It measures 14.5 inches x 10 inches and is a nice size for tea for two. Initially I thought the price of 35.90 GBP a little pricey. Once it arrived I thought otherwise.

 The Bavarian happened to be at home when I opened the parcel and he was delighted with it too, being a fan of woodland themes. Just as we were oohing and aahing over it, I spotted a small crack in the black veneer in one corner. The damage hadn't come from the shipping. That was clear from the perfect condition of the carton the tray was packaged in. It seemed as if a screw had been tightened just a tiny bit too much. 

Now, Zazzle has a promise on its website and on the delivery documents that they will replace any product the customer is not satisfied with. That includes personalised gifts. I took a few photos of the damage and was straight on to them. The damage was very slight, but promise like that needs to be tested, right? Within minutes I had a reply from Zazzle to say, not only that they would send me out a replacement but that they would inform manufacturing of the issue to prevent it happening again.  

Just the other day my new tray arrived, as gorgeous as the first and completely flaw-free. I have been giving it a good testing, using it for my many tea and coffee breaks. Its glossy surface is easily wiped clean with a damp cloth and, so far, the tray gives a hard-wearing impression. On the underside there are little felt pads to prevent the tray scratching surfaces. I was particularly pleased with this since our coffee table is glass topped and our kithcen table is painted. Considering the finish the tray has and the fact that it is personalised, I think the price is quite alright. 

With its colour scheme and pretty pattern, it is really getting me into the festive mood. I will definitely be heading back to Zazzle shortly to do a spot of Christmas shopping now that I know I can rely on them for quality and for keeping their promise.

[Disclaimer: I was asked to test and review the Zazzle website and their personalised products and was given the above mentioned products free of charge in exchange for writing a review. All photos and all opinions expressed here are my own.]