Perhaps you think this is a wee tad early? Well, let me tell you, I start wrapping
Christmas presents as soon as I buy them, ideally in January. If you wrap a present as soon as you buy it,
there is every chance that you will have forgotten what is inside the package
by the time Christmas comes around.
That’s what I do, anyway, with my own presents.
I have a basket of everything necessary for wrapping gifts
on top of my wardrobe. All sorts of
papers, ribbons, little decorations, scotch tape, scissors, eraser (for erasing
the prices pencilled on the fly leaf of second hand books), etc. Piled next to it are presents that need
wrapping. Every so often I take down the
basket and unwrapped presents and have a little wrapping party on the floor of
the Nostalgia Studio.
Tonight was one of those occasions. I need to get ready several packages for
overseas recipients, and there were a few last minute entries for myself as
well. Recently wrapping paper has become
rather thin, which is irritating for people like me who like to recycle their
wrapping paper. My advice is, buy the
best quality – ie thick! – paper you can lay your hands on for presents to
yourself or people from whom you can snatch the paper back after they have
unwrapped their gifts. For people who
you suspect just throw their used wrapping paper away use the usual, thin,
easily torn, variety of paper.
The same principle holds for ribbons and other decorations,
of course. I have some ribbon I have
used half a dozen times, and it still looks lovely. Well worth paying the extra money for.
Some gifts are tricky to wrap because they are rather bulky
and/or awkward. For these I use simple
brown paper, which is both cheap and sturdy.
When decorated with an abundance of fancy ribbon is looks quite nice,
really. Usually I favour red and green
and golden paper, because I consider it most Christmassy.
I am uniquely lucky in being the proud owner of a four
poster bed. That means I have a bed with
a roof, and on top of that roof I store my wrapped presents. That way they are out of the way, but
whenever I feel the urge I can climb onto my stepladder and have a peek and
gloat in anticipation.
This year most people get perishables from me, as part of my
de-cluttering drive. It doesn’t seem
right to de-clutter my house while re-rubbishing everyone else’s homes. So people will get home made alcohol,
candles, cookies, cakes, pralines, and anything else my fertile imagination can
concoct. Obviously I can’t wrap that
yet, this being the beginning of the production cycle. But I have already made a good start.
Yesterday I mixed the dough for Pfefferkuchen, the one that
needs to sit in a warm place for three weeks, then gets baked, then needs
another two weeks sitting in a tin to get soft.
I am not covering this recipe in my blog, because it is tricky and often
even I don’t get it right, after 30 years of making it. It involves potash and continuous heat, which
was easy in the olden days when people had ranges that were stoked 24/7, but in
this day and age it is a bit of a struggle.
Nevertheless, I have high hope for this dough, and if it works out it
will make its way into several presentation boxes for my favourite friends.
This Saturday I will start the Dresdner Christstollen, the
one I made the candied citrus peel for.
Again not an easy recipe, given the significant amounts of butter
involved, but I shall endeavour to photograph the proceedings and give the
recipe as well, in case anyone feels inspired.
I bought a huge bowl for it today, the one I used in the past had to be
given over to the birds after their bath cracked last winter – the recipe
results in rather a lot of dough, I am afraid.
Another Christmas surprise – both for me and the potential
recipients – is my Elderberryport. It is
my favourite tipple, dreadfully expensive and hard to come by. So ten years ago I decided to make the stuff
myself. I gathered the berries and
followed the recipe to a t, and when I had laid down three gallons read the recipe
again and discovered that it needs to sit for ten years before it can be
drunk. Since then I made another gallon
for several years, until I ran out of space.
Also I reflected that if the recipe was a dud I would be stuck with
about 8 gallons of potentially lethal wine, and decided to cease making any
more until I had tasted the results.
Since then the 8 demijohns have been sitting in the Mouserleum gathering
dust and all but forgotten. However,
when I recently de-cluttered the Mouserleum I had a look at the tags on the
demijohns and discovered to my surprised that the ten years were up and the
wine is ready to be decanted and tasted!
As soon as I can lay my hands on a few empty bottles I will assemble a
group of stout-hearted friends and open the first sealed demijohn! If the stuff is any good, a few bottles will
be passed on to trusted friends. If not
I will - well, I don’t know what I will do.
After waiting for ten years it had better be good! I shall report in due course.
