Advents

I know, we haven't got Bonfire Night over yet, how dare I mention something associated with Christmas? There again I had an e-mail from Jacquie Lawson last week saying their Advent Calendar is now on sale  so I'm assuming we can talk about them, even  if it is just November. 

I daresay I will get  the JL one although I had a few issues with it last year. At least this year they claim they have some new music, which is a great relief because they have been using the same few carols over and over for years now, and some of them I am very sick of. The calendars are fun and I do look forward to seeing what each day brings, but  occasionally I think I have  just got  a bit too used to them and no longer have quite the same joy in them that I did when the first few came out. The wonder is gone. And that is not the fault of the team at JL, it's a fault in me, because I've got  blase. That said the colour palette last year was horrible and I'm not particularly taken with the this years setting - 'a chic apartment in Paris'. 

We do already have four advent things in the house. One is the yarn advent that the OH traditionally buys for me for Christmas; this year it's from a dyer called The Yarn Artist themed on the paintings of Van Gogh and that's still in the box the postie brought it in. I'm not sure whether to open that day by day in December or leave it all until Christmas Day. The jury is out on that one.

Also yarn related is the weekly advent from Lay Family Yarn which I treated myself to. 

Four parcels, on the theme of Winter at the Christmas Market,  one for each week of December, and each one containing the yarn and pattern to make a project small enough (in theory) to be finished in a week. All I'm saying to that is -  It's December and Christmas is coming, who on earth is going to have the time to knit a project a week?? But I'll give it a go. 

Next up is this one 

the Bonne Maman Jam advent. Some may remember I got this one last year as a one off and I wasn't going to repeat it, mainly because it had 5 or 6 days when instead of a small jar of jam you got a little chintz bag filled with dust which was supposed to be tea. As far as tea goes, if it doesn't look and taste like a relative of Yorkshire Tea then I'm not inclined to call it tea at all, and I'm certainly  not venturing to pour boiling water on a set of crushed-almost-to-extinction leaves which aren't even admitting to what they are, and then drinking the stuff.  It seems I wasn't alone in my low opinion of the tea option, as this year we are promised 24 small jars of jam. Plus, by buying direct from the company,  we got a large jar of their chocolate spread  which we are already using. The OH seemed a little it unsure about this, it not being December and all, but as I pointed out there are 24 small jars behind 24 numbered cardboard doors for December. The big jar is therefore non month specific. 

And finally is one that has become a bit of a fixture recently and that's the Yankee Candle Advent Calendar. The one we have this year looks like this. 

There was much bigger one that was twice as expensive which I assume contains votives rather than tea lights. Anyway the past two years the TC advents have had 18 tea lights, which I have always thought was odd, and they just sat in the box waiting for you to choose which colour for today and with a generic list of five scents on the bottom the box with no indication of which colour which scent related to. This year they have upped their game. There are 24 tea lights and they are each concealed behind their own little cardboard door and there's a little infographic on the bottom of the box telling you the scent for each of the eight colours. I feel that personally  I could live without a Christmas Cookie scented candle but it is an American company and Americans do strange things where cookies are concerned; scent their candles, put the raw dough in ice cream etc etc And anyway, who knows? they might smell all spicy and lovely. 

So that's our advents for this year. Last year we were away for the first week of December for our Stockholm Christmas Markets trip and although that was lovely and I wouldn't have missed it, it meant playing catch up with a lot of the advent stuff whihc spoiled the fun a bit. This year we are planning to be at home for all of December so I should be able  to get into a routine of opening /marvelling/ eating/ lighting and knitting as each day begins. 

But before that, two birthdays, Bonfire Night, a trip to Leeds and the Alps, presents to buy and the cards to get written. After that though, it will all be relax relax relax. (Yeah, probably not that last bit!)