pinklaundrypin: Advent

Advent!

my dear friends. its been a extremely long time since my last post. I'm sorry for that. it was a time of difficulties and little joys, a time that took my full energy and attention. I'm still completely in it, but, let me say the truth, i missed doing my blog and i just want to do fun and steadfast things. so, I'm back for good and I'm looking forward hearing from you as well.

the topic today is advent. for some of you it may not be a term that you are really familiar with. in germany we call the time before christmas "advent". it is an old latin word and means "arrival". so advent is the time when we prepare for the arrival of our lord jesus. and thats christmas, right? birthday party! so lets prepare.

i do it, of course, the very german way. i love traditions, as long as it is filled with meaning and joy.

last week was the christmasmarket in our hometown herrnhut. it was the perfect weather (usually it rains like nothing good on this day. not this year thought!). it snowed the day before and everything is white and looks like it should. the sun was shining, the sky was blue and it was just the right temperature. my dear kids amelie and benedikt and a good friend joined me, and it was a lovely day. we ate a lot of nice christmas market food, found our way through the masses of people, had some interesting parking experiences and very good hot chocolate in a nice cafe.

at home i just worked a little on my christmas decoration. this year its kind of colorful. here are some pictures. they are not so great though. maybe i should get a good camera for christmas;-).

what is really important for a nice advent afternoon, are some nice christmas cookies. i made some filled hearts with peanuts. you take 300 gram of white flour, 200g butter, 100g sugar, one or two egg yolks (depends on the size) and the zest of half of an organic lemon. let it process in the kitchen machine or make a dough out of it by hand. don't knead it too long. its ok if its still a little crumbling.

put it into a plastic bag and cool it down in the fridge for an hour.

roll the dough with a rolling pin and cut out little hearts with a cookie cutter. in half of the cookies cut a little hole. look at the pictures, than you know what i mean. "paint" the cookies with scrambled egg yolk. you can also put some peanuts on the top of them as well.

bake the cookies at about 180 degrees celsius for 6 to 8 minutes. be careful, they get too dark very easy.

when the cookies are cooled down, fill the cookies with jelly. very good is grape jelly or lemon curd. delicious!

for me its a very refreshing and joyful thing, to sit down in the afternoon, the sun gets down already and i light a candle or two. then a nice cup of tea and cookies and preferable a good book. this sounds, really, its the truth, like heaven on earth. peaceful and comforting.