Tuesday 5 December 2006

Santa Tea And Gingerbread

I am terrible at two things. The first is keeping a secret. I won't spill your secret, but mine? The moment I had paid for Carls birthday present, all I could do was say 'you have such a good present this year!'. And when I spied two cheerful Santa mugs in a Christmas Shop the last week in November...well it was so hard to keep them for advent! And even harder to keep them for an advent surprise. The mugs are so sweet- I got two, and they are slightly different, but both are 3-d santa heads, with his hat making the handle. They are saved from tackiness because they have that Scandinavian vibe to them. Every morning of advent so far, we have had our first cup of tea of the day in them, and our last cup of tea of the evening, with the Christmas tree lights twinkling upon us.

Now the other thing that I am terrible at is gingerbread. Not eating it, no, no, I can do that! And nothing in mind is nicer than a really firey ginger nut and a hot cup of tea. There is a particular kind (I think they are Borders but I could be wrong) that are really gingery, and are covered with dark, thick chocolate.

Oh, but I digress! The thing I am bad at is Gingerbread Houses. How lovely they look in magazines! How wonderful they look on other peoples blogs. How disasterous it was last year! I had found a kit, with the pre-baked sides and roof- it even had a little window cut out, and a door. All I had to do was fix it together with icing and decorate it...

...All! It was so brittle that one wall snapped in half, and the icing wouldn't stick...and I couldn't find the sweets I wanted to use for decorations....let us just say that it has become a little bit of a joke in our house! Dear Carl tried to rescue it for me- it was so far gone, he had to tie it with string! But even after all this, when I visited the lovely www.vintagepleasure.typepad.com and saw that Ikea are doing kits for £1.50- it crossed my mind for a whole minute that I should go buy a kit!

Perhaps I am better off sipping tea from my Santa mug, and nibbling away on a chocolatey ginger biscuit instead?

1 comment:

VintagePretty said...

Oh your tree in the last post sounds wonderful! I've just been out today and bought ours (one can tell I'm feeling slightly better!), although I was on my own because my hubby was working and I could not wait until Saturday!

I haven't made a gingerbread house before - despite the inspiration from blogs and magazines, I am however, going to make gingerbread men and sit them on the tree (not that they'll last long!). Perhaps instead of a gingerbread house you could do something different altogether? I'm going to be making Norwegian Julekake, and celebrating as the Norse do!