Now that my husband and I have been travelling together for a while, we have now got some pretty well established routines.
Firstly, we like to buy a fridge magnet, and then we buy Christmas ornaments, and then a new thing which we started over the last year is buying Pandora charms to add to my bracelet.
We just put up our Christmas tree for this year. We haven't over decorated it because are not wanting to provide too much temptation to the dogs, but we did put all the new ornaments on. Here are the ones we acquired in our travels this year
This one comes from Amsterdam. We did buy a glass one from Valkenburg which was a town we visited in the Netherlands where they hold Christmas markets inside a network of caves near the town but the ornament did not survive the trip home. I posted about the markets in the Netherlands last year. Re-reading the post make me wish we were going back this year, but we are not!
We got this one when we visited Bayeux
These ornaments look quite small in the picture but they are actually a set of three with the big one being about 12cm diameter. We got these at Chambord which is a chateau in the Loire Valley
We got both of these from Chenonceau which is another magnificent chateau in the Loire Valley. We had already bought the white and gold one when I saw the silver one as we were just leaving the gift shop so I had to have it!
No prizes for guessing where this one was from!!
This one comes from Naples, which was a surprisingly Christmassy city! There was a whole lane in the old town dedicated to Christmas!
Fast forward to October and we were on another trip. This ornament looks more like our Christmases but this ornament is actually from Hawaii
And here is our final new ornament for this year from Vancouver.
Here is the tree (without the makeshift fence to keep out the doggos). We didn't really need the fire on because it was quite warm on the day we put up the tree but it does look nice
And here are the doggos in question looking very innocent
I am sharing this post with the Virtual Advent tour hosted at Sprite Writes
At this time of year there are lot of messages for us all. Things like you need to spend a lot of money on gifts to have the perfect Christmas, or that the perfect Christmas needs to look and feel a certain way, that there are certain traditions that must be upheld. If we go back to the original Christmas story, there were the messages from the angels to Mary, to the shepherds. There's a lot of messages. This week, I have been getting my own message. And that message is ..... Lebkuchen.
Before I get to what exactly what lebkuchen is/are, I thought I would explain the how I am getting the message.
Last week I was listening to Bill Bryson's Audible original The Secret History of Christmas, in which Bryson answers all the questions that you didn't even know you needed to ask about the history of Christmas. Examples might include how did a 4th century bishop from what is now modern day Turkey transform over time to become integral to so many Christmas stories around the world? Has Christmas always been the big deal it is now? Not really. Who are the biggest spenders when it comes to Christmas, and when did many of the things that we consider traditional now actually become traditional. The answer to that one may surprise you. There are things that are generally known that are debunked like the fact that Prince Albert bought the Christmas tree to England when he married Queen Victoria.
As you would expect, there are lots of facts and stories about food, because let's face it, food is important in every holiday. He talks about what traditional foods are around the world. Actually I should say this is very European centric but I guess that is not wholly unexpected. There were a few things I learned. One I already knew was that it is now traditional in Japan for families to eat KFC at Christmas time. Another example was that it was traditional in some parts of Poland for the main meal to be carp which was kept in the bathtub until it was time to cook it so that it would be really fresh when cooked up. Without wanting to steal a joke from the book, it does make you wonder how fresh the family was!
This is a really short audiobook, around 3 hours, and it was really fun to listen to. I already listen to Hogfather by Terry Pratchett every year, but I could see myself listening to this again at some point. In fact, I just suggested to my husband that maybe we could listen to it in the car together while we are out and about, so I could be listening to it again as soon as this week.
I have also started reading to the Secret History of Christmas Baking by Linda Raedisch. Actually the full title is The Secret History of Christmas Baking: Recipes & Stories from Tomb Offerings to Gingerbread Boys, and from this you can possibly tell that this book is not all tinsel and mistletoe. In this book there has been quite a lot of material around the prevalence of honey cakes, all the way back to Egypt which have then morphed into some of the familiar flavours we are used to. The author is of German descent, and so the various different versions of lebkuchen throughout Europe is discussed.
Some of the history is very interesting. For example, when I think of Christmas-y flavours things like cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger come to mind, but these are flavours that had to be imported to Europe at some point. The author talks a bit about this, particular in the context of the actions of institutions such as The Dutch East Indies Company where there is evidence of the atrocities that were committed in the name of obtaining these spices.
The content is primarily food related but there are also some craft related activities interspersed in the pages.
I am looking forward to learning more!
The final prompt I have is because of a cookbook I bought a while ago called Advent by Anja Dunk. Again, this one has a full title which is Advent: Festive German Bakes to Celebrate the Coming of Christmas. So far, I am really loving this book which is separated into 24 different chapters (one for each day of Advent) with all different types of bakes for each chapter. The author talks about a Bunter Teller which translates as "colourful plate" and in this context means a colourful plate of Advent biscuits. Part of the reason why the book is broken into these different chapters is that there would be a specific order in which you bake the colourful array of biscuits.
The order in which they are baked acts as a calendar; a countdown measured in biscuits. The butter-less biscuits, many of them old-fashioned varieties such as Lebkuchen, which keep the longest, are baked first, followed by nut biscuits, then macaroons and meringues. We bake butter-rich ones such as Vanillekipferl after all of the aforementioned, and finally the last things we make are all the sweets and truffles. The biscuit are usually stored in a towering stack of tins kept at the ready to plate a selection up whenever neighbours and friends pop round.
It's my kind of advent calendar, although not if I have to do ALL the cooking!!
The second chapter is for several different versions of lebkuchen including how to make your own spice mix, lebkuchen hearts (filled and unfilled), old-fashioned honey lebkuchen and more.
I have made a soft gingerbread biscuit several times previously which is inspired by lebkuchen. I tend to take them to work to share with my colleagues and they are always a hit! I shared this recipe a few years ago! They are honey and orange-y morsels of goodness!
Throughout the book the chapter divides are Christmassy lithographs which the author created herself, and all the photos are her own as this book was created during lockdowns. As I flick through the book there are so many things which look utterly delicious. There are cakes, biscuits, desserts and more. It's a lovely book!
I can see myself spending a lot more time looking at this book. But only after I have decided which lebkuchen recipe (or inspired recipe as the case may be) I am going to bake this week.
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Welcome to my stop on the Virtual Advent tour hosted at Sprite Writes. I am so pleased to see that the tour is still going strong. The first virtual advent tour was back in 2006 so that isn't a bad run!!
We are currently in The Netherlands where we are spending Christmas with my husband's brother and his family who now live here. His parents are also here from South Africa. It's the first time my husband will spend Christmas with his parents and brother in around 15 years so it is a pretty big deal!
This part of our trip is all about the family things, so when we were planning our trip, there was only one thing that I insisted that we needed to do. I had to be able to visit a Christmas market. If I got to do anything else touristy it would be a bonus.
As it happens we have visited two markets (so far). The first was in a town called Valkenburg which is about 3 hours away from here and it is considered to be one of the biggest markets in The Netherlands and is the biggest underground market in Europe. The town of Valkenburg is quite close to the Dutch border, so there was a mix of nationalities visiting. We visited during the week so it wasn't too busy, thank goodness. I imagine it would get very busy on weekends!
The thing that makes Valkenburg unique is that all the markets are held in the caves underneath the ruins of a medieval castle. There are four caves, but we only visited two - Gemeentegrot (Municipal Cave) and Fluweelengrot (Velvet Cave).
The setting in the caves was amazing. I was a bit disappointed by the stalls themselves, but it was still worth the long drive to visit such an interesting place and so much history. For example, in one of the caves there is a chapel that was established in the time of the French Revolution. Catholic priests would run church services, marriages, christenings hidden away. There are still services held now on request. It would be a magical place to get married for sure.
There is also a daily parade through the town but we didn't stay for that because it was a long drive back to where we are staying.
We also visited the Royal Christmas Market in The Hague today, which we visited as it is where my mother in law grew up. This was set in a park surrounded by old buildings. There were bare trees that had lights strung between them, the smell of food cooking, music playing.
I really loved visiting both of these places and could easily have spent a lot more time in both of these towns. The Hague seemed particularly interesting, especially because of my mother in law's connection, but also because the city has an interesting history!
Back in 2006 Kailana from The Written World and I had the idea to start a Virtual Advent Tour where we toured around the blogosphere as participants shared stories, songs, memories and more about Christmas. We continued to host up until 2013 when we handed the baton over to Sprite Writes and she has been hosting since 2014
For the longest time the Advent Tour was one of the ways I helpedget myself into a festive mood because it was a time of the year that I did struggle with, so I am super pleased to see that the tour lives on!
I thought for my advent post this year I would share something that I have been doing for a while now and that is buying Christmas ornaments when I travel. For a long time I used to buy one special ornament each year. Usually it would be a more expensive, more fragile ornament with a glittery inscription of the year on it, but a few years ago this morphed into being ornaments that we had bought from places we had visited on our travels.
This year I should have been able to share ornaments from London and Paris at the very least but our trip was cancelled and we haven't really been able to travel anywhere to buy new ornaments! So instead, I am sharing last years with you.
In May last year we travelled to the US, arriving in New Orleans, then we went on a Carribean cruise (where we got engaged) and then we drove from New Orleans to Nashville, and then onto Kansas City via Tuscon and a small town called Concordia where my son was playing college basketball. It was an amazing trip.
Along the way we gained several Christmas ornaments, which are going to grace our new tree. This year is actually the first year that we have put up a tree since Robert moved in. The last couple of years we haven't quite managed it because we were going on holidays so we decided not too.
So these are just some of the ornaments that will be gracing our tree this year
This is our New Orleans one, the classic fleur de lys. Only problem is that when I went to hang it on your new Christmas tree this year, I realised that the only way to hang it is upside down which didnt really work properly.
Next up - Nashville. I really enjoyed Nashville and would love to go back again at some point. Maybe not right now with the US COVID situation, but some time.
The next one comes from Graceland in Memphis. We actually bought two ornaments in Memphis. The only problem is that we have lost Elvis! Maybe I should say Elvis has left the building? Actually I am pretty sure he is still in the building but we really don't know where! And now, I am going to need to find him, no matter how much effort it take because he would look great on our tree! He's purple, with a big cape and, from memory, gold accents!
We did acutally acquire another ornament last year when one of my friends visited from New Zealand.
Here's hoping that next year we will have some new additions to the tree from places we have visited. Maybewe will need to collect some Australian ornaments.
Thank you for visiting my post for this year's Virtual Advent Tour. Special thanks to Sprite Writes for keeping the tradition alive.
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