For coffee, tea, grog

Santa brought us these adorable harbour mugs last year, so that we don't need to miss Hamburg quite as much. They were crafted by Hildburg Lucardis Wittke and cure thirst and homesickness equally well. The mugs are light as a feather and the harbour scenes in their happy pastel colors are so much more darling than the usual Hanseatic imagery you'd find on a souvenir mug.

Fortunately our yearly visit to Northern Germany is imminent, right in time for the pinnacle of hot beverage season, and so we'll be spending Christmas drinking hot mulled wine (aka Glühwein) and singing a shanty or two.

And for those of you who really feel like having a grog now, there's a recipe in Marion's Kochbuch that'll also teach you how to avoid a hot mess on the kitchen counter.

Deck the halls, a little bit

My Christmas decoration is fairly minimal this year, and I only used supplies I already had. Since we will be spending Christmas back home in Germany, I held back on decorating over here and am all the more exited about advent wreath, tree & co. over there. Of course I need some decoration. This festive wreath is done quickly, doesn't shed needles, and you can create it in pretty much any color scheme you want. Simply wrap a straw wreath with a fairly wide velvet ribbon, affix ends of ribbon with straight pins. Then thread three Christmas ball ornaments each onto a piece of slim ribbon, fasten the ends with a knot. Arrange the groups of balls on the wreath, secure them with straight pins. Decorate with felt snowflakes or other ornaments.

Leave room for milk

For years now I held on to a Starbucks paper bag with a pretty wintery print. Inspired by tulibri's paper bag books back then, I had planned to recycle it into a book some day. The day has come...



The spine and corners are made from off-white book cloth, and I found a red paper for the endpapers that matched the colors on the cover.



For the textblock I printed dotted blue lines onto white paper, somewhat resembling snowflakes. I feel like having a Caramel Macchiato now...