Dear readers,

This year, I am sending all my best wishes for the holiday season all the way from France where I am spending Christmas with my family and taking a little break from work and the blog.

Thank you so much for following along this year, reading my posts and leaving lovely comments on the way. It always means a lot to me.

I look forward to sharing more stories, travels and recipes with you all next year!

Joyeux Noel, have a wonderful time!

Yolène

What a cold week it has been! We were in Belfast last Saturday and even saw snow there (well, what was left of it!). I hope that you are keeping warm wherever you are, or cool if you are in the Southern hemisphere.
Here are a few interesting things I took note of to share with you today:

- Pantone announced the colour of the year 2018 and I am not sure what I think about it yet, let's see!

- My husband sent me this chapter of Harry Potter written by a bot in the middle of a work day and I couldn't stop giggling.

- I adore this Heattech t-shirt, a wonderful thing to wear on really cold days, it keeps you so warm.

- I had serious chocolate teacakes envy when spotting this recipe.

- This indoor herb planter looks so lovely and might be the solution for me to have my favourite fresh herbs handy when I need them.

- If you are planning to learn a new language, here is a map showing you how long it might take depending on the language.

Oh I love a good Christmas market! A couple of weeks ago, I suggested we head to Belfast for a day and spend time checking out the one there. We were there two years ago and from the good memory we had of it, train tickets were immediately booked so we could go visit it again.
This time, we took our Catalan friends with us for the day. The train trip from Dublin to Belfast is quite nice and relaxing. Shortly after leaving Dublin, we started seeing snow covered landscapes which really put us in the mood for everything Christmas related.
After arriving in Belfast, we took a detour via St George's Market and then headed for the Christmas Market.

How was your week?
We are one week into December and I am glad to say most of our Christmas gifts getting and making is done. I would usually not rush into it because I always have a clear list of things. This year however, we have to get organised a bit earlier as we will have a few early celebrations before we head to France and spend the festivities with my family. Among getting gifts and organising our trip, here are a few interesting things for the week that was:

- The Time's Person of the Year was revealed and it was the best choice they could have ever made this year.

- I dreamed of one day visiting all those European Christmas markets.

- I shared a few ideas of minimalist gifts for Christmas.

- I swooned out loud when I saw this gorgeous copper notebook popping up on my friend Alex (the Interior DIYer)'s Insta stories.

- I spotted these great ideas for making your own Christmas gifts. I am mostly interested in the food making parts.

- I was delighted to spot French brand Sézane's creator in this cosy looking article.

As Christmas is fast approaching, I see entire crowds in the streets, department stores and shopping centres of Dublin with many many bags of gifts in their hands. Many years ago, I was part of that crowd of people. I would make a nice list of things I wanted to get for my friends and family and would brave the busy streets of Dublin to buy everything and make sure I could pile a lot of presents under the Christmas tree.
With the years, I have grown really tired of 'stuff'. I think I have learned to appreciate a different type of things and to put more value on a happy lifestyle rather than material things. At home, we recently started a very big session of decluttering and I discovered we owned a whole lot of very unnecessary things. I discovered what was more valuable to my life and what was not.

This leads me to Christmas gifting and receiving. I love Christmas and I adore coming up with beautiful thoughtful gift ideas every year. But this year, I want to be extra thoughtful and give presents that do not create clutter in someone else's life. I came up with a list of things and I hope this can be helpful to others who are also interested in a more minimalist approach to Christmas gifting.

I hope you all had a good week and that you managed to keep warm if you live this part of the world!
Have you started decorating for Christmas? Despite seeing many shops and streets already decorated for the past month or so (some even started in August, sigh...), I always keep this special time for the 1st of December along with the opening of the advent calendar, which is homemade for us.
Apart from finally getting into the Christmas spirit and getting gradually excited about planning our trip to France for the occasion, here are a few things I read, made, watched or dreamed about the past week.


- This lovely story of a couple's picnic tradition in Brooklyn.

- I made this delicious mushroom, fennel and Camembert pot pie this week (minus the fennel which I replaced with leek). I think it will belong onto our list of favourite dishes.

- I finished reading this book that I really enjoyed. You may have spotted it if you follow Reese Witherspoon's book club on Instagram.

- I had tears of laughter watching this video.

- Now that the festive season is on, all I dream about is a mug of this Cognac and hazelnut hot chocolate.

- I felt really motivated reading about getting things done. I do always get things done but I like finding productive ways of doing it.