Merry Christmas, everyone!
Or Happy Hanukkah, Happy Holidays… I hope you’ll have a great day anyway!

Big sister woke me up this morning at ca 10:00 AM and gave me breakfast - it was the very first time I got breakfast in bed. She served me Indian tea (Chai?) with milk along with cornflakes with yoghurt and chocolate crumbs. Interesting taste.
Mom is feeling a bit ill but still made the Christmas ham ready for the Christmas table. Sadly, it’s only our little family who will celebrate Christmas together; my grandparents couldn’t come, my uncle will be visiting them and my cousin is at his gf’s parents home… but I hope I will have a jolly Christmas with my family anyhow.

I’ve also finally sent the Christmas gifts and cards, so for some of those who are waiting might have to wait until New Year’s or a little before that. Sorry for the wait!
I will also submit some Christmas gift arts here - a couple are already done and the rest I’m having a little trouble with (e.g. proportions again and Photoshop decide to die on me… or faint). At least a part of the gifts will be uploaded, the rest needs a little more time. So please wait, you-who-are-waiting-but-don’t-know-if-you‘re-the-one-who-gets-oh I give up. This makes no sense anymore.

Update!
I recently watched the Christmas film "Bernard and the Genie". Oh I love it! It's so jolly and sentimental at the same time. Really funny too. I gotta find it on DVD!
End update!

NOW! I don’t know if everyone knows this Christmas preparations with oranges and clove. I only know that Finland and Sweden make these, not if they’re known around in Europe, in the States or in Japan, but I’d like to share this with you anyway. Maybe this is something new for you - it’s simple and fun (at least if you do it together with someone)! (It's not too late, you could do it during Christmas with your family to spend the time until you open the presents.)

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“Oranges with clove - also a scent of Christmas
~ Quote from Blogspot

There are some versions of how you could make your own Christmas decoration with the orange and clove. Here are some samples!

M a t e r i a l s
Oranges (as many as you like)
Cloves (make sure you have enough for the oranges)
Ribbon
Mistletoe (if you have one, but it’s not really necessary)
Knife or other pointy household utensils that makes it easy to enchase the oranges

Simply poke the cloves into the orange peel until you think it’s enough of cloves all around the orange. Then you just tie a wide ribbon around the orange. If you have a mistletoe, wrap it on the orange to make it look a bit more jolly. Remember! The more cloves you use, the more it will smell pleasant.

The results could look like this:


Another way is to tie a small ribbon or loop at the top so you can hang it e.g. by a window or on the Christmas Tree. If you make more of these, they could look really nice.



If you find it hard to poke the cloves into the orange peel, you could enchase them just like this:



You can also make them more personal with your own patterns, like this:




O t h e r g u i d e s
Here I’ll share three other good links of how-to-guides:
[link] (Standard way)
[link] (Orange cloves Christmas ball)
[link] (Orange & clove candle holders)


Finally, I want to share my own picture where I’ve used a regular packet ribbon(?) instead of a wide ribbon:




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That’s all for now. Take care, and have a wonderful Christmas!

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