Mulled Wine on a Star

For years I have started to buy mulled wine as early in the fall as it becomes available. Usually I buy non-alcoholic, so maybe I should say "Mulled without wine". Anyway, in Finland we call I "Glögi" -both ways, with or without alcohol. This year it has been different. I have cut down sugers from my diet fot health reasons, so that is why I have not been too keen on buing readymade Glögi. Instead I have read a lot of recepies, and planned to make my own version, with minimum sugar.



This is how it turned out to be:

2dl sugarless cranberry juice  (I used one made in Finland from Finnish berries)
3dl water
a little bit of readymade "glögi" -concentrate
fructose, by taste

Christmas Spices: cinnamon, ginger, Dianthus, raisins, orange peel
2dl Dry white wine

We have a ready made seasoning mix for "glögi" available during the christmas season, you can buy it, as well as "glögi" concentrate from Suomikauppa (a shop for Finnish goods)


At first boil the water, then mix with cranberry juice, fructose, seasoninf mix, and the "glögi" concentrate and keep warm for apx. 45 min. but do not boil. Then filter off the spices and add in the wine. Warm up and serve with raisins and almonds.

The brand new stars under the Glögi mugs are made the same way as the origami stars, but left "two-dimensional". They are made from 3 cm wide linen ribbon and to make the re-usable I sewed a rectange in the midlle of the star to hold the ribbon in place. Pretty.

Traditional Paper Stars

A long time ago a co-worker taught me how to make origami stars from four long slices of paper. I made many back then, my mum even got ten red ones and ten golden ones as a Christmas present. Now I found the instructions again in a Swedish Christmas magazine "101 Idéer" and was suprised, that it wasn't easy at all to figure out how to make these little origamis. I tried and tried, and my friend tried but I had to get a good night sleep, and try again the next day before I got it right. I decided to make so many stars, that it would be impossible to forget ever again. Well, it is easy to say so now, we'll wait and see how it will be next year, or the year after. But this Christmas:  I did it!

"Every Time When the Bell Rings..."

About twenty years ago a got a postcard from a good friend. The card had a poem on it, a poem about an little angel, who got tired from all the work as an guardian a a child. The angel put the the baby asleep in the night and flew up to the heaven to get some sleep on a little cloud and in the morning she was back in business, just when the kid woke up. (Hopefully there was another angel in the night shift :)) The idea to this piece of decorations, however, came from the poem. This is where the Christmas angel left her dress for the night, with a little bell... maybe you've heard it tinkle sometime...

Matching matches

I just love candles.This is just the season to light as many as possible. Every day, on each table. I also tend to forget matches on the table, simple little boxes but little bit dull looking. I solved the problem by matching the matches into other decorations. Now their are cute. With  a little  piece of lace, old book sheets and a wooden button their are brand new looking, and ready to be forgotten on the table again.