Yummy Soy Wax Christmas Candle + Nordic Reindeer Hotpad

 

I'm in love with scented candles from small businesses, and I just bought this sweet 9 oz candle called Joyful in person at a consignment and tea boutique called Festivitea in Colorado Springs. I couldn't resist lighting it as soon as I got home and I grabbed this red Nordic Reindeer hotpad as background for the photo!

Color me thrilled to find that this candle artisan also has an Etsy shoppe, called CelyseStudio! And the candle I just purchased is in her online store!

Joyful has such a mild Christmas scent. I find sometimes that holiday scents are far too woodsy for me, so I love that the primary scent I'm getting is the clove, which I find very calming. It's a warming scent, if that makes sense, like you're snuggled up in a blanket with a cup of tea and eating gingerbread. 

Click to open the Etsy listing for Joyful

As for the Nordic Reindeer hotpad, this is available from another Etsy business called The Finnish Cottage, and this one happens to be my family's small business! We started up this business last year and I just never got around to mentioning it on this blog!

We currently have red and silver Nordic Reindeer hotpads, along with a variety of other holiday table and home decor, including table runners. Our little online store exploded with business this November which has been amazing!

Click to open our Etsy listing for this hotpad

Click to open our Etsy listing for this hotpad

Click to open the Etsy listing for this table runner set

I'm super proud of what our family has accomplished in just a year with The Finnish Cottage and I am also thankful to support other small business owners like CelyseStudio!

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Christian Christmas Reads Haul!

 

It's that time of year again!

Well, technically I'm a little bit late, but better late than never when it comes to buying some new Christmas Reads, which I did and am waiting to arrive in the mail!

If you're looking for an amazing source of Christian (or clean) Christmas fiction then I highly recommend browsing through the Christmas Fiction section of Christianbook.com. I love that website so much for Christian fiction and even for stocking stuffer ideas, so keep it in mind for that too!

I tried reading Christmas Bells by Jennifer Chiaverini a few years ago and just couldn't finish it. But I'm a little bit different now as a person than I was a few years ago so I'm actually really looking forward to this book. And I love Longfellow's poem so I am excited that Longfellow is the primary theme of this book!

This is one I would consider to be more clean than Christian fiction just based on my memory.

I haven't read Lynn Austin books in many years but I like postwar and 1950s fiction, so I think I will enjoy The Wish Book Christmas. I also fell for the cover, not gonna lie. It's super cute. 

Waiting for Christmas, also by Lynn Austin, is another book where I just loved the cover, but I also enjoy Victorian fiction a lot so I thought I would give this one a try. Literature is full of people who married for love, not station, so I wanted to see Lynn Austin's take on the subject.

I haven't had good luck with Julie Klassen in the past, BUT sometimes Christmas fiction brings out the best in an author. So I'll give An Ivy Hill Christmas a try. Regency fiction is some of my favorite to read so I'm hoping that this novella is as charming as it appears.

I absolutely adore Melody Carlson's Christmas fiction! She's one author whose work I look forward to reading every year, but I don't own all her Christmas books and this one is a 2024 release so I am eagerly bouncing up and down waiting for it to arrive. I can't wait to read The Christmas Tree Farm!

Again, here's another author that can be hit or miss with me. I've very much enjoyed some of Roseanna M. White's fiction in the past and really disliked others, but I'm more than willing to give her 2024 Christmas release of Christmas at Sugar Plum Manor a try.

I totally missed last year's Melody Carlson Christmas novella so I had to leap at the chance to buy it, even buying it at full price, which I totally did. I appreciate that romance doesn't seem to be at the front and center of A Quilt for Christmas, but instead is about a widow befriending a child in need of a Christmas miracle for her mother.

While my ancestry is mostly Finnish and Swedish, I do have a small amount of Norwegian blood in me and I happen to love eating lefse, a delicious Norwegian alternative to a tortilla or a crepe that is made out of potatoes. So finding an author, Larry Woiwode, who wrote a story involving lefse, well, I knew I had to purchase The Invention of Lefse: A Christmas Story.

And there you have it! My 2024 Christmas Reads Haul from Christianbook.com! I'm eagerly awaiting the arrival of my package so I can get reading!

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Experiencing an Authentic Scandinavian Meal

Even though my family hails from Swedish/Finnish roots, the Sons of Norway opens its doors to anyone with Scandinavian heritage, little caring if you're actually Norwegian or not.

Two years ago my family, meaning myself, Caitlin, Mom, and Dad, attended the Lutefisk dinner that they host yearly in November. My grandfather (Mom's dad) always cooked lutefisk for Christmas, but he passed away before Caitlin and I ever met him so we'd never experienced anything like an authentic Scandinavian meal apart from a few Swedish meatballs. It was a lively and glorious experience, all except for the lutefisk itself.

What is lutefisk exactly?

Lutefisk is dried whitefish (normally cod, but ling is also used) treated with lye. It is then either baked (how my grandfather apparently prepared it) or boiled (how the cooks at Sons of Norway prepare it).

Let me just say that lutefisk with lye is pretty gross. It is gelatinous, wobbling on its platter as its brought to the table, and just all around nasty.  Then again I'm what . . . 4th generation Swedish American? I didn't grow up eating it so naturally it seems weird.

Your next question is probably, why would you ever want to go back?

I love tradition. I love being around people of a similar heritage and customs to my own, who know what I'm talking about when I mention a Dala Horse or a Tomte and can appreciate the deliciousness of adding cardamom to bread.

So while my father is salmon fishing in Oregon (because the last lutefisk dinner was waaaaaaaay more than enough for him), we (Mom, Caitlin, and I) reserved space at this year's Lutefisk Dinner for this afternoon.

It was heavenly!

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First Snowfall of the Season

I'm not talking the first snow of the year, but the first snow of the season, after you've gone through the heat of summer and then watched the leaves falling, and then finally, even before you expect it (like this crisp morning in Colorado) you wake up to little crystals coating every surface of your yard and house.

My very first thought immediately flies to Christmas. So many good memories are tied up in Christmas for me, traditions, family and friends, books and movies, Christmas concerts, gifts under the tree, an elderly cat happily drugged out on catnip with her paws wrapped around her Christmas stocking. The very first snow of the season reminds me that winter is almost here, and with it, Christmas. Even though the sun bursts through the clouds by 10 am, melting all of the snow by noon, it was still there, and it still turned my thoughts to December.

Snow also reminds me of other things. Like when I lived on the coast of Oregon as a child and only experienced snow twice. Caitlin and I made the tiniest snowman ever on both of those occasions and then watched him shrink each day until he looked rather like an emaciated albino penguin. Or how about the move to Colorado when I was 14-years-old, to a house in definite snow country, and that winter falling in love, absolute love, with snow and sleds and full-sized snowmen.

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