Such a weird Christmas that I had to decorate myself too.

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope it was a good one despite the pandemic.

It was certainly unusual for me to say the least. Instead of mulled wine, Christmas markets and too many family visits, we got glittery Christmas lights in empty city centres, police curfew at 9 pm and cautious gift exchanges from a distance or in the post. Our government decided to let us out of complete lockdown and allowed visits between 12 pm on the 24th and 8pm on the 25th, with the usual police curfew from 9pm to 6am, which was perhaps more ridiculous than any other anti-corona measures so far. A part of me felt like we’d truly crossed over to some kind of dystopian, alternate reality, but well, at least I got to spend Christmas with my family.

This year I was with my father’s family for Christmas and we started our Christmas dinner before 4pm, old people style. I suppose it’s good that it gets dark outside so early this time of year, because carving up a Christmas turkey in daylight would’ve felt even more depressing. My boyfriend’s crazy numerous family (20+ people) had a Zoom meeting at 5pm, since there was no way all of them could celebrate together because of the restrictions on gathering. We were home by 9 pm and I almost felt like a scolded child, but it was a nice dinner anyway. 🙂

Christmas gifts of 2020

As I told you in my Christmas post last year, I firmly decided to stop buying presents and start making them instead. Since my late grandma and I always baked cookies together in December and she used to bake enough for the whole family, I tried to pick up the tradition last year and it actually went quite well. I filled 5 whole cookie boxes last year, so I’ve decided to set this as a standard and cookie baking has now been cemented as my Christmas thing. Who knew baking cookies could be so therapeutic?

Another new thing my boyfriend and I tried out last year was the Rumtopf/pickled fruit in rum thing. It was not perfect yet last year, but this year it turned out just right and it is absolutely delicious. I’ve had a hard time not eating it with everything and I also recently shared the recipe, so come check it out here! It’s super simple and inexpensive to make and it’s the perfect Christmas gift if you’re not against alcohol.

So, 5 kinds of home-baked cookies and a jar of pickled fruit in rum is what I’m giving to my friends and family for Christmas for the foreseeable future. I think everyone is happy to get homemade food and not a lot of people take the time to make something as obscure as rum pot, so I think it’s a winning combo. Kids and friends get extra bits as well, since I can’t make enough rum pot for everyone, but you get the idea.

This year my friends and I exchanged gifts in the mail, so I sent them some tea, a jar of cookies and a pair of of slocks, the Slovenian socks. One of my acquaintances got a rather clever business idea and she started selling cotton socks with Slovenian cultural motives on them a few years ago. I think they’re brilliant – who doesn’t love sausages or potica on their socks? I also made an embroidered bookmark for my best friend Eva (you may remember her from the Erratic hat videos and yes, embroidery is another thing I’ve inherited from my grandmother). I also have a gift exchange going with a Swedish friend, but I’m still working on that one.

If you look at the photo with the presents too closely, you can also see I had a sustainable packaging fail: I tried to think of a way to pack the cookies that wouldn’t include plastic bags and I only partially succeeded. I managed to pack the smaller quantities into glass jars and I also had some old tin boxes that I gave to my family (I’m trying to get them used to returning the tin boxes and the rum pot jars), which worked great. However, I underestimated the amount of butter that went into the cookies, as I tried to pack the rest of them into those brown paper bags you get your bread or vegetables in and the grease quickly seeped through the paper. Better luck or more tin boxes next year, I guess!

Christmas decorations of 2020

How was your Christmas or whichever holiday you celebrate?