Glühwein is German for mulled wine. Mulled wine is one of the things that I really love about this time of year. I have to confess we often cheat and buy a bottle of the pre-made stuff, though usually ad a few extra spices and our own orange slices. The rest of the family aren't that keen on the chunks of citrus, but that just means all the more chunks of warm, wine soaked, orange for me! 
When we used to go skiing it was a favourite drink at lunchtime... the falls certainly hurt far less afterwards!
The wine was traditionally made by putting a glowing poker in to the wine to heat it, glüh translated means glow. If you're a fan of historical novels it's something you'll sometimes hear being referred to, there was a far greater tradition of warm alcoholic drinks historically. Mulled Ale was very much a thing in 18th century England, as was the drink Flip, a combination of beer, rum eggs, and sugar. 

If red wine isn't your thing, here's a recipe for white mulled wine. Which leads me to todays musical treat, the only Australian part in this calendar (sorry Aussies, but prawns on a barbecue are not featuring tomorrow). The wonderful Tim Michin, with one of my favourite Christmas songs. 

Hogmanay is the Scottish New Year celebration. For a long period of time Christmas wasn't celebrated in much of Scotland. The Presbyterian Church of Scotland discouraged celebrations on Christmas Day for over 400 years, Christmas Day only became a national holiday in Scotland in 1958. Instead most Scots celebrated on New Years Eve and New Years Day. 

Many of the Scottish Hogmanay customs are now familiar to many of us as things that we do on New Years Eve. The practise of First Footing, this brings the luck for the rest of the year. For the best possible start the first person across the threshold should be a dark haired male, and he should be bringing salt (the custom of offering salt to guests is incredibly ancient), shortbread, whisky and black bun. 
Black Bun is a rich fruit cake, completely encased in pastry. 

In many parts, particularly the Highland and Islands the celebrations take on a distinctly Viking feel. 

​Should you not feel like swinging fireballs around your back garden other traditions such as cleaning the house before the stroke of midnight are a little bit more achievable!

This colour is named after the New Mexican tradition of placing lit candles in paper bags and creating trails of lights. 

AS with all good local customs there is debate...  depending on where you are in the state you might call them Farolitos, or you might call them Luminarias. The tradition originally started as the lighting of small bonfires, but it puts much less strain on you firewood stores to use a small candle inside a brown paper bag. So the bonfires mostly disappeared once the brown paper bag became common, the fires largely disappeared. Farolito comes from the spanish word for lantern, luminaria from the word for light. Which you use is a bit of a north-south divide! 

If you do decide to try this at home please remember some basic fire safety... setting alight to your garden is not the ideal way to start 2021. 

This years 12 Days of Christmas parcels started with a hand dyed braid on 25th December, but then the following days all contain brand new colours of Superfine Merino & Silk. 
This is the exact same fibre composition as all the rest of the stock currently in the shop, so can be used interchangeably in the same projects. This was specially commissioned for the 12 Days of Christmas parcels, which meant I had to order lots of each colour. As a result the spare fibre is going online at midnight (GMT) on the day featuring each individual colour. Anyone can buy this spare fibre... it's really rather pretty! You can find it in the Superfine Merino & Silk section of the shop, and the usual Buy 2, Get a 3rd Half price offer applies to this fibre as well. ​

I've given them seasonal names, picking out traditions from all around the world. ​
​The colourway today is called Jólasveinar.
This shade of icy blue reminds me of frozen glaciers, it's designed to work well with lots of the other colours we've already seen, and a few that we have yet to see by clever use of similar component colours. 

This is a time of year where the giving of gifts is a central part of many cultures and traditions. Who gives the gifts varies, as does the date that the gifts are given. There's also usually a character who is responsible for monitoring bad behaviour! 
​Jólasveinar are the 13 Yule L ads from Iceland. They visit during the night on the 13 nights leading up to Christmas Eve.  Children leave a shoe on the windowsill, and if they have been good a small gift will be left, if they're behaved badly then they'll get the not so nice gift of a rotten potato. 
Each Jólasveinar has his own name, and own characteristics, and they all cause a particular brand of mischief on the night they visit. The present giving is relatively new, a softening of the scary and mischievous behaviour of the  Jólasveinar. They're the sons of Gryla and Leppalud, and for the rest of the year share a cave with Urðarkötturinn, The Yule Cat. He travels around the countryside at Christmastime and eats people who have not received any new clothes to wear for Christmas Eve. 
This myth is relatively recent, probably from the 19th century, and created by farmers to incentivise farm workers to finish processing the autumn wool, and therefore receive their payment of cloth.

Plygain is a Welsh traditional  Christmas carol service, held in the early hours of Christmas morning. The customs and format varied from area to area, but in many cases young people would often gather and stay up through the night and then all go to the church together, carrying candles in order to light the church for the service. Once in church there is little formal structure to proceedings. Groups of carollers simply get up and sing, and the same song is never repeated twice. Songs are often prepared throughout the year, and there can be great consternation if another group sings the song you were planning to sing before you! Families often have their own hand written songbooks, passed down through generations. 

Plygain carols are often unique to Wales, and not simply  Welsh translations of the carols that many of us are used to singing at this time of year. In modern times the tradition of the early morning service has largely disappeared, but many churches in this area do still hold a service, but they're often spread through late December and early January allowing people to attend more than one service.

If you'd like to hear more this is  a playlist filled with Plygain carols. 

This years 12 Days of Christmas parcels started with a hand dyed braid on 25th December, but then the following days all contain brand new colours of Superfine Merino & Silk. 
This is the exact same fibre composition as all the rest of the stock currently in the shop, so can be used interchangeably in the same projects. This was specially commissioned for the 12 Days of Christmas parcels, which meant I had to order lots of each colour. As a result the spare fibre is going online at midnight (GMT) on the day featuring each individual colour. Anyone can buy this spare fibre... it's really rather pretty! You can find it in the Superfine Merino & Silk section of the shop, and the usual Buy 2, Get a 3rd Half price offer applies to this fibre as well. ​

I've given them seasonal names, picking out traditions from all around the world. ​
Here in the UK many of our Christmas traditions are imported from Germany, thanks to the husband of Queen Victoria; Prince Albert. The newspaper reporting of the Royal Family Christmas celebrations set the tone for family Christmas in many middle class homes. 

Christmas in many UK homes would be unthinkable without a Christmas tree. The tradition of bringing greenery in to the home at midwinter long predates the Christian festival. Tannenbaum, despite what the song suggests actually means fir tree. The song linked above is a traditional German song, the English translation adjusted to fit the rhythm of the song. 

Either way, we will have our Christmas tree decorated early in December, and it won't be coming down until the end of the 12 Days of Christmas. 

The dark green of this colour echoes the pine forest, with branches dusted with snow. 

Todays colour is a beautiful dark navy, with subtle streaks of green and grey.
This colour is called Nochevieja, which is the Spanish celebration on New Years Eve (yes I know it would make more sense for this to have been 31st December, but I picked the colour way names after I packed the first parcels! It's 2020.... I'm letting go of perfect!). This dark blue is the perfect colour to give us the feeling of the dark winters sky. 

Nochevieja means Old Night, and the Spanish celebrate the end of the old year with some very specific traditions, including the eating of 12 Grapes as the bells toll midnight. 

On the following day it's also traditional to eat a Lentil and Chorizo soup. Which sounds perfect as a fibre rich dish after the rich feasting of the festive season, we often have Dahl as an evening meal at some point during this period for this exact reason! 
If you fancy giving it a go, here's a recipe. 

This years 12 Days of Christmas parcels started with a hand dyed braid on 25th December, but then the following days all contain brand new colours of Superfine Merino & Silk. 
This is the exact same fibre composition as all the rest of the stock currently in the shop, so can be used interchangeably in the same projects. This was specially commissioned for the 12 Days of Christmas parcels, which meant I had to order lots of each colour. As a result the spare fibre is going online at midnight (GMT) on the day featuring each individual colour. Anyone can buy this spare fibre... it's really rather pretty!  You can find it in the Superfine Merino & Silk section of the shop, and the usual Buy 2, Get a 3rd Half price offer applies to this fibre as well. 

I've given them seasonal names, picking out traditions from all around the world. ​

This shade is called Santa Lucia. It's made up of lots and lots of different shades of green, with a warm undertone. 

Santa Lucia is a Scandinavian tradition, celebrated on Saint Lucy's Day, 13th December. The origin of the tradition comes from Lucia of Syracuse, who bought food to the Christian martyrs, hiding in the catacombs in Rome. She carried candles on a wreath around her head to free her hands to carry as much as possible. Before calendar reforms  the saints day was on the shortest day of the year, so the tradition of bringing light fitted in nicely with many existing traditions. 
It's now celebrated by processions of young children, wearing white robes, with the girls wearing a crown of candles, and boys wearing cone hats decorated with stars. Historically of course the candles would have been real, many are now replaced with electric candles. 
Sweet treats are often given out, specifically Lussekatter, saffron flavoured buns coiled in to an S shape. 

This years 12 Days of Christmas parcels started with a hand dyed braid on 25th December, but then the following days all contain brand new colours of Superfine Merino & Silk. 
This is the exact same fibre composition as all the rest of the stock currently in the shop, so can be used interchangeably in the same projects. This was specially commissioned for the 12 Days of Christmas parcels, which meant I had to order lots of each colour. As a result the spare fibre is going online at midnight (GMT) on the day featuring each individual colour. Anyone can buy this spare fibre... it's really rather pretty!  You can find it in the Superfine Merino & Silk section of the shop, and the usual Buy 2, Get a 3rd Half price offer applies to this fibre as well. 

I've given them seasonal names, picking out traditions from all around the world. ​

​Next up is Panettone,  a soft cream colour, with slight peach undertones. 

This colour is called Panettone, after the Italian baked delicacy. I have a confession.... I can't stand panettone. I find it dry and really boring. I'd much rather have a piece of Stollen with it's generous hunk of marzipan! 
I won't be baking one this Christmas, but if you feel the urge this is a recipe from an Italian Pastry chef. 

This years 12 Days of Christmas parcels started with a hand dyed braid on 25th December, but then the following days all contain brand new colours of Superfine Merino & Silk. 
This is the exact same fibre composition as all the rest of the stock currently in the shop, so can be used interchangeably in the same projects. This was specially commissioned for the 12 Days of Christmas parcels, which meant I had to order lots of each colour. As a result the spare fibre is going online at midnight (GMT) on the day featuring each individual colour. Anyone can buy this spare fibre... it's really rather pretty! You can find it in the Superfine Merino & Silk section of the shop, and the usual Buy 2, Get a 3rd Half price offer applies to this fibre as well. ​

I've given them seasonal names, picking out traditions from all around the world. 

This beautiful shade of red is called Julekurver. 
It's a vibrant shade, but darker than some of the other red shades I've stocked, and has some beautiful shimmers of gold running through it.

Julekurver are Norwegian paper heart decorations. They can be incredibly simple, but look really pretty and elegant. They'd be a great way to reuse some pretty wrapping paper from Christmas presents. 

Here's a link to some step by step instructions, scroll down for the English translation. 
This site gives you some links to make ones that are very simple like the ones above, or ones that are far more complicated, with more complex cut out patterns.  
This site shows you how to make them in step-by-step instructions, scroll down for the English version. When done correctly they can be opened out and used to hold treats as a little basket. 
​If you google you'll find lots of lovely instructions, for variations, I'm recommending starting off simple with just 2 cuts and 3 strips, they can be surprisingly fiddly!