A slow and simple Christmas

Food, nature, books, secondhand finds, handmade.

Christmas is almost upon us, our first in this house. It’s exciting and has given us the opportunity to embrace some new traditions. Whenever we finish a book, my husband and I put a £1 coin in an old tin. At the end of the year, we open up the tin and take it to the bookshop to buy more books. This year we had over £80 to spend. We decided to go shopping in the early evening so we could enjoy the town’s Christmas decorations and see how our neighbourhood was celebrating Christmas. It was a cold but dry night, and the decorations in peoples houses were simply wonderful. We headed to the bookshop to choose our books, then walked to a little pub round the corner that offers craft beer and relaxed into one of their sofas with a pint and a packet of salt and vinegar crisps. This is something we just wouldn’t do back in Leeds, it was always too busy, too noisy, and of course you’d always have to find your way home by bus or taxi. Here, we just walked the ten minutes back home, enjoying the Christmas displays in the old Scottish sandstone houses with their magnificent bay windows, filled with enormous Christmas trees and outdoor lighting. Going into town in the evening to buy our books and visit the pub is something we’re going to do every year from now on.

I’ve also been indulging in some nostalgia, enjoying a rum truffle from the local bakery. I used to love these as a kid, and you can find them all year round, but at Christmas they add a little icing to make them look like a Christmas pudding. I’d actually forgotten they existed, and haven’t eaten one for over thirty year. I’m so glad they are back in my life. They are rich, decadent and utterly delicious, filled with a soft cake crumb mix soaked in rum and I highly recommend indulging in one if you are ever visiting the West Coast of Scotland. We know how to do cakes well here.

There have been some gorgeous frosty days, and we’ve taken the opportunity to enjoy some fresh air and admire the scenery. The winter light down by the riverside is breathtaking, and I love how the frost wraps around the dried seed heads from summer perennials. Nature is achingly beautiful.

We also walked to the pottery studio to collect the last of my ceramic creations. They’ve turned out okay, and I’m pretty happy with my little bud vase below. It’s handbuilt using the coil method, a technique that I really enjoyed learning. It’s a little wonky, more bumpy than I would have liked, and I pushed the rim down to create a sort of scalloped edge, although I wish I’d left it more rounded. It’s glazed in a simple white and I think it looks nice on the shelf with some dried flowers in. I’m hoping to return to the pottery studio in the springtime and do some more as it’s a perfect way to slow down and just live in the moment.

The house has been decorated in places for Christmas. We discovered a farm nearby sells locally grown Christmas trees, and so we got a lovely six foot one there. I’ve only been able to fit in a 5 foot tree in our old house, and even that was a squeeze, so having a larger tree has been fun to decorate. I think I could probably go bigger next year as we’ve got very high ceilings. I loved the reflection of the tree lights in the living room window against the backdrop of the snow.

I’ve added a few new ornaments to the tree, including the little brass crescent moon from Weald Store. For the dining room, I bought a peace dove paper garland from our local gift shop Flourish, and added it to the peg rail along with some fairy lights and a paper star I bought a few years ago. I like the calming but festive shades of brass, off-white and silver.

At the last farmer’s market of the year we bought handmade chocolates, jars of chutney, bread and from my favourite producer ‘Sage Against The Machine’, we bought their homegrown tomatoes which had been sundried and bottled in oil as well as their own raspberry syrup. We’re going to have the syrup poured over pancakes on New Year’s Day. From our fantastic local greengrocer we have all our vegetables and fruit for Christmas including the obligatory sprout stalk. We’re having a Veggie Wellington for Christmas dinner, followed by salted caramel crumble topped mince pies. We always find Christmas pudding a bit heavy after such a large meal.

I’ve found some fantastic pieces secondhand recently, including these beautiful brass candlesticks, the festive motif style plate and the tiny brass candle sconce. A new vintage store, Raw Milk antiques opened up a week ago, and it was so beautifully styled and full of treasure. I popped into the secondhand record store and scored a Phil Spector Christmas album which included some of my favourite songs like Frosty The Snowman and Here Comes Santa Claus. On Vinted I bought a couple of books, a collection of winter inspired crime stories by Agatha Christie and The Light in the Dark by Horatio Clare, a journal about nature in winter and the joy that it can bring in the darkest of months.

Our Christmas will be quiet, just the way we like it. My parents will come down and visit with us for some of it. There will be good food, good books, films to watch and hopefully a walk in the December sunshine. We will start Christmas Day with a veggie sausage sandwich and a glass or two of Bucks Fizz.

2023 started off with us putting our house up for sale in Yorkshire, it ends with us living here in Dumfries. It has been one hell of a year and words can’t express the joy that I feel being here in Scotland. It’s so good to be home.

Thank you for reading, commenting and supporting my work here on Substack, I am extremely grateful. Have a wonderful Christmas, see you in 2024.

Jen x