'Tis the season...

Hi, Y'all!

Yesterday the Germans celebrated the first advent (I talked about that tradition and the four candles last year), and our garden was coated with a bit of frost - beautiful and the perfect setting for mulled wine :-)

Although I have a candle basket which I reuse every year for our advent wreath, I wanted to have something different this year. Therefore, I took four of these little mason jars, filled them with salt (which I can still use for salt dough afterwards), cut little labels from vegan leather and hammered some grommets in and took a chalk pen to write the numbers. Together with some greenery from our garden, four candles and some red and white twine the cute and simple arrangement was complete. 

Here you can see the complete tray:

Well, this year I wasn't in the mood to crawl into our sub-basement to dig out all of the Christmas decoration, therefore no Christmas tree in 2020 - will do that again in all its' glory in 2021 in our new home. But of course, I can't do completely without decorations, thus a few impressions: 

You see, it varies from minimal to cute, and prior years' all white is accompanied by some red accents now. Before moving, I decided to use all the candles I stashed in my cupboards, which led me to the next decoration. Please note: The bottles are more than 100 years old! A distillery near my in-laws bought all the glassware of an old pharmacy, and are now selling their schnapps in it. Therefore, I'd never ever throw them in the bottle bank but reuse them over and over again. 

In case you're wondering: There are rosemary sprigs inside the bottles, because yesterday, I clipped all my remaining herbs and put them in our basement to dry. Then I emptied all the planters to clean them to have them ready for moving. Well, it starts to sink in that we will actually move - and I do hope we will be in our new home around February first. 

Pretty astonishing, how many candles I collected but never lit...

To close this post, please find below a nice still life with our alternative Christmas tree, some mulled wine and genuine Dresdner Stollen (famous fruit cake from the Dresden area). Thanks to my in-laws we get a care package every year with that precious and delicious original Stollen for me and poppy seed Stollen for hubby. Again a big thank you to my in-laws, we are delighted each and every year! And yes, I actually like candied orange and lemon peel...

My lovelies, enjoy the Holidays despite the turbulent times and have fun!!!