Welcome to the Love Santa Blog

We share lots of Christmas related ideas, recipes and crafts in the Love Santa blog. You are welcome to comment or submit your own Christmas stories, too.

Mulled Wine & Fruit Cake

Dec 12, 2010 | ,

Mulled wine just has such a beautiful flavour and a warm, happy feeling that I can’t resist this recipe each Christmas although it does seem to fit a cold Christmas more (by name that is, it tastes great in summer, to!)

You need:

125g butter
1 cup sugar
1 tsp baking soda
2 tsp baking powder
1 cup plain flour
1 cup wholemeal plain flour
450g sultanas (or 400g plus 50g dates, chopped)
250g dried cranberries
450g crushed pineapple
2 eggs
2 Tablespoons mulled wine

Put the mulled wine, butter, suagr, dried fruit & pineapple in a saucepan and bring to the boil. Add baking soda then simmer & stir for about 5 minutes.

Allow to cool before mixing in everything else.

Pour into a cake tin (silicon one works well I’ve found) then bake at 180C for about 60minutes. Cook for up to another hour at 150C when it is firm to touch.

If it gets too brown as it cooks, cover with foil.

Cool in tin then enjoy. Serves about 24 people at a party or about two serves each in my family if we have it for dessert…

* Mulled wine can be bought in some places apparently, but it’s easy to make. If you need some quickly for this recipe, just heat some red wine gently with cinnamon, cardamom, cloves and (preferably) lemon rind. what ever’s left over is lovely to drink under a Christmas Tree 🙂

Books for kids

Dec 10, 2010 | ,

It isn’t always easy buying books for kids, especially if you don’t have kids in that age group yourself. Reading the cover of a book doesn’t always give a good indication of the appropriate age group – and I know I don’t always have time to read a book before I let my kids read it let alone for every kids I buy gifts for at Christmas.

I was very impressed by a Dymocks catalogue not long ago as they did list the age for books aimed at kids.

For anybody else after age appropriate ideas, I found an Australian site listing some good books at a couple of ages – and asking for more people to add to their list so it may be bigger by now with luck.

Books are such a great gift but only if it meets the requirements of the reader. Do you give many books as gifts?

Edible snowflakes

Dec 6, 2010 |

Ok, they aren’t part of an Aussie Christmas, but snowflakes do have a traditional Xmas feel and these ones are quite yummy 🙂

To make 60 snowflakes…

Sanat's cabin in Canada!

A white Christmas in Canada has snowflakes – Aussies need edible snowflakes!

2 cup icing sugar
5.5 cups plain flour
250 g butter
2 eggs
2.5 tsp vanilla essence

get eggs to room temperature.
Cube butter and put back in fridge
mix flour and 1.5 cup sugar together then add butter.
Blend until you get a mixture looking like fine breadcrumbs.
Mix in eggs and vanilla essence until a dough forms.
Knead dough until lower surface is smooth.
Push dough into two circles about 20 cm across and wrap in grease-proof paper. Put in fridge for an hour or so – should be firm to touch.
roll out dough until about 5mm thick – sticks less if you put it between sheets of baking paper.
If you can find a snowflake cutter, now is when to use it! If not, use a star cutter and a knife to adjust it or try a Christmas tree cutter (instead of snowflakes or join two together for a snowflake-ish look).
Put trays of biscuits into fridge for 30 minutes.
Pre-heat over to 180 Celsius and prepare baking trays (grease or use baking paper).
bake for about 10 minutes
cool completely on trays then dust with icing sugar to enhance the snow feeling.

 

Peppernuts

Nov 28, 2010 | ,

These are a traditional Xmas treat in Germany and they quite pretty in a nice bowl on the Xmas table or wrapped up as a small gift. They keep for at least a month (so you can make them before Christmas Eve!) & go well with coffee.

This recipe makes about 200 of them – halve it if you’re not making gifts as well.

Peppernuts
120g butter
1 tsp bicarb soda
2 eggs
1 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
1/2 cup golden syrup
1/2 cup water
2.5 tsp finely grated lemon rind
4 1/2 cup plain flour
1/2 tsp mixed spice
1/2 tsp allspice or cinnamon
Icing sugar

Combine sugar, syrup & water in pan but don’t let it boil until sugar dissolved . Then boil. Remove from heat & add butter & soda.

Cool to lukewarm. Stir in egg, lemon rind, flour & spice. Put dough in fridge for a few hours or overnight.

On lightly floured board, roll dough into sausages about 3mm thick. Cut into 3mm slices. Place on lightly greased oven trays. Bake at 180C for about 12 minutes.

Cool on wire rack, dust with sifted icing sugar.

Store in air tight container.

Ordering with Love Santa

Nov 28, 2010 |

Obviously, Santa is a very very busy man, and that’s why he asked us to help him with writing letters to some of the Australian children; and of course that keeps us busy too as there are many letters to be written! Santa gives us details but it also helps when parents, grandparents, aunt, uncles and others lets us know a bit more about the child(ren) we’re writing to. So we have our online order form.

Hopefully the form is pretty easy to fill in, and last year we gave some tips on getting the best results.

You can also choose when to receive the letter. In our experience, letters arriving too early are less effective (and sometimes confusing) than those in the last few weeks before Christmas. However, people sometimes want an earlier letter so you can choose a delivery week if you wish.

Letters are sent just prior to or early in the choisen week and arrive soon after (how soon depends on exactly where you live).

If you don’t choose a delivery week, the letters will be sent between the 14th and 18th December.

Love the craft

Nov 27, 2010 | ,

I’m really looking forward to the Love Santa letters arriving soon – the craft activities included for the last 2 years have been fantastic and a great way to keep my kids occupied while the big count down goes on FOREVER!

SO very Santa to give something for kids’ happiness as well as answering their letters. Thank you!

No gifts for adults?

Nov 22, 2010 | ,

Adult with Christmas gifts under the treeI know a number of friends have a family arrangement where only the kids get Christmas presents now, but I don’t like it.

Yes, I get that it saves a lot of money and stress to cut down the list of people to buy for – and with a list of 35 or so, I am all for that concept! And kids are often easier to buy for than adults you don’t see very often.

But there are a number of downsides I think:
– adults deserve fun too – who says we grow out of presents?
– it teaches kids to expect a lot, and possibly at the exclusion of adults
– kids get so much it is overwhelming anyway

Why not let the kids watch adults get things for a change?

Or maybe make family gifts instead of for kids or adults – a board game all can play, tickets to the zoo or a movie, a recipe book they can use together, some vegetable seedlings to start a garden, a beach umbrella, and so on.

What do you think – if presents are being cut back, who should get them? Have you experienced this idea of kids only gifts – did it work well?

* Photo courtesy of 123rf

What they love…

Nov 20, 2010 |

One Christmas, the kids made us laugh. All day people asked ‘so what did you get for Christmas?” or “what did Santa bring you?”

Miss 4 (nearly 5) answered every time with “a lollipop” – and only having prompting for more did she remember the books, doll, hair ribbons and colouring sets she had asked for and received!

BROWSE BY CATEGORY

Start your Christmas kit gifts

Banner for 'how to make a personalised gift set' eBook showing some gift set ideas

 

Love Santa - www.lovesanta.com.au

 

Order Cut Off Dates

Please note that Love Santa letters need to be ordered before December 18 to be delivered before Christmas!

Order now to be sure of delivery before Christmas. Keep an eye on our blog for final ordering days as we get close to Christmas Eve.

 

Privacy Policy

Under no circumstances, not even under threat of having to fill in for Santa on Christmas Eve, will your details of any kind be given, sold or lent to any other party.

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