Gift idea: Candy 

Makes a good gift for: Anyone/ Stocking Stuffers/ Twelve Days Gifts

I certainly don’t have to tell you that everyone loves candy. And if I am wrong, well, you can get that person some carrots or something. I also don’t have to tell you where to shop for candy. You can go to the grocery store, the drug store, Target, See’s, or a local candy shop. Another great place to shop for candy, especially Christmas candy from around the world, is Cost Plus.

Here is just a small selection of the goodies you can expect to find at your local Cost Plus:





http://www.worldmarket.com/product/lindt+mini+snowman%2C+5-pack.do?page=8&from=fn

Gift idea: Small Candles 

Makes a good gift for: Adults, Teens, Stocking Stuffers 

I love candles, especially well-scented candles (candles that don’t make you gag, but have a nice scent). Candles can make a nice gift on their own, or as part of a self-care package with some bubble bath and nice lotion. All of these little candles have the added bonus of being small enough to fit in a Twelve Days of Christmas Gift Box!

How cute are these small beeswax pinecone candles:

These small votive candles would be perfect for someone who loves flowers or gardening:

These mirrored votive candles would look great on a dining-table or a mantel-piece:

Big Dipper Wax Works has some of the best beeswax candles, and some of the best scented candles I have found, and this collection of their different scents would make a great gift:

This twelfth cake (also known as Three Kings' Cake or King's Cake) is very different from the French twelfth cake. Instead of a yeasty-bread type cake, this cake is much denser, and contains rum-soaked fruit, currants and raisins. It is a much shorter recipe, although it does cook slowly at a low temperature. This recipe also calls for a dry bean and a dry pea - whoever finds the pea and the bean in their pieces are the king and queen of the evening's revelries. As the recipe says - the bean determines the king and the pea determines the queen.

Cake ingredients:

• 1/4 cup white rum
• 1/2 cup golden raisins
• 1/2 cup currants
• 1/2 cup candied fruit pieces (I used a fruit-cake mix)
• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 4 eggs
• 2 tablespoons milk
• 1/2 teaspoon almond extract
• 3 to 3 1/2 cups flour
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1/2 teaspoon allspice
• 1/2 cup slivered almonds
• Zest of 1 lemon
• 1 dried pea
• 1 dried bean

Instruction for the cake:

Golden Almond Icing Ingredients:

This Week's Gift Theme: Stocking Stuffers

Gift Idea: Classic Toys and Miniature Classic Toys

Makes a good gift for: Anyone/ Stocking Stuffers/ Twelve Days Gifts

Kids and kids at heart alike can appreciate find a fun little toy or two (or three or four) in their christmas stocking or in their Twelve Days Boxes. The idea here is to spend just a couple bucks on toys that still require some good old fashioned imagination. Most chain toy stores still carry some of these toys – think silly putty, bouncy balls, wind-up toys. And a small mom-and-pop type toy store would probably have an even better selection of classic toys and other small goodies.

You can also find a good selection online:

Silly Putty

From Amazon - $3.99

Parachute men

Wind-up toys

Chinese jump rope

Jacks

 

Wassailing was an old country tradition that took place on Twelfth Night or "Old Christmas Eve," especially in areas where cider apples were grown. Right before dark that wassail (spiced ale or hard cider topped with roasted apples) would be prepared and ladled into the special wassail bowl (similar to a punch bowl with handles). The village would gather at the orchard after dark with the wassail on hand and proceed to bang pots, shoot off guns, and make a racket to frighten away any evil spirits that could still be lurking about on this last night of Christmas. This commotion would also help to begin to "wake up" the trees from their winter hibernation. The trees were blessed with thanks and urged with rhyming chants to produce an even better crop in the new year. The oldest, most venerable tree's health would be "toasted" with a piece of wassail-soaked bread or cake placed in its branches. 

If wassail was left over after regaling the trees, then the ceremonies would conclude with the villagers quenching their own thirst before returning home. In some areas, the young people would go from house to house in the village, singing wassail songs and receiving small gifts or treats in return.

Wassail is an old Middle English contraction of waes hael, meaning "be health" or "be whole," that was derived from the old Norse ves heill "to be healthy." The reply to waes hael was drinc hael, or "drink and be healthy." The modern expression "hale and hearty" shares the same roots.

Recipes:

A Swinging Wassail