So to hell with holiday romantics. Not.

I hope you are all having the most wonderful Christmas days or are simply enjoying yourself if you do not celebrate Christmas! I myself am very happy and very very full right now. Yesterday I celebrated with my parents, my little sister and 7 different dishes and today we met up at a Spanish restaurant with the Spanish part of the family. It was delicious, loud and funny, as always. Tomorrow, my German granny, her sisters and the Count will come to our place for some more food and presents.

Here's a picture of how I (or at least my face) looked like yesterday, just because I can:

 
Anyway, I want to wish all of you wonderful people all the best! I hope your wishes come true and I hope nobody burnt their house with the candles on the Christmas tree. Don't give me that look, it happens.


Here is my Christmas song of 2012, I know, it's all anti and hipster and stuff but I still like it.

December is for cynics- The Matches



Mocking charols that we hate, 
damn, it's easy being great! 
So to hell with holiday romantics, 
december is for cynics, 
december is for critics! 
Let's get high on art supplies and hibernate, 
december is for cynics!

Happy Christmas and have a wonderful day!
The Countess

I'm a Christmas Elf!

Or at least I feel like one. Everything revolves around Christmas in my life at the moment, the Christmas spirit took possession of me and now all I can think of are presents, cookies, snow and fairy lights. I baked the first cookies about 3 weeks ago and as I want to make all to make all presents myself this year I spent a lot of time crafting, cooking and melting.Yes, melting. I made candles. Scented candles to be specific.

Patchouli and Orange

Cherry and Lily of the valley

I also made some chai syrup for some of my friends. you add a bit in a cup of black tea or (soy) milk and voilá: Chai! It contains a bunch of spices that make it smell like Christmas in a bottle aka heaven. As its main ingredience is sugar it does not need to be stored in the fridge and you can keep it for a while. If you want I could post the recipe here.

Chai syrup

The last thing that has a christmas-y smell to it is the sugar-coffee-cinnamon-oil peeling I mixed as a present for a friend. I didn't take a close-up of this because it doesn't look exactly...pleasant. Honestly? It kind of looks like mud but it smells delicious and makes your skin super soft. The sugar and coffee have a peeling effect, cinnamon encourages blood flow and the oil leaves your skin nice and soft.

The peeling is in the bottle in the middle. Like I said: Mud.

The small jars contain lip gloss and a lip peeling. Again, I have the recipes here if you want them.

Making the lip scrub

The lip gloss, still in its hot, liquid condition

The final results

All that is missing now is a bath oil and then everything is ready for the first Christmas party of the year this weekend.
What are your favourite Christmas presents to give to your friends?

Have a great day,
The Countess

Christmas in Cologne

It's nearly Christmas! I love love love Christmas! On Saturday, the 1st of December, we had the first snow here in Cologne which is pretty early for the area I live in. To honour this wonderful time of the year I want to share some pictures I took in the city my heart beats for.
I proudly present: Winter in Cologne!

I hope this will be the beginning of a little series through december, if you like it at least!
Sleep well,
The Countess