Christmas officially arrived in full swing this week in our household and I couldn’t be happier. We prematurely decorated a couple of weeks ago for an exciting Christmas photo shoot {more on that soooon!}, but I knew if we kept the tree and decorations up that long, I’d end up getting tired of them. I love Christmas so much so I didn’t want to overdo it. So my lovely assistant husband tidied the {fully decorated} tree into our spare bedroom for a couple of weeks, and out she came on Sunday for reals.
As part of the photo shoot I had the idea to fancy up a Christmas themed bar cart. I redecorated it this week to cater to our 3 main Christmas drinks – Irish coffee, hot chocolate and mulled wine. Yes and please. I dedicated one shelf of our cart to each drink and decorated accordingly …
Husbands signature drink at Christmas is Irish coffee. He really hits the nail on the head. This year our household is rolling not one, but two Baileys deep. If you can, I would highly recommend the new Baileys Chocolat Luxe. I also included whiskey for old school Irish coffee, along with our favourite over-sized mugs ready to go. A perfect way to wind down at the end of a cold day.
The middle shelf is dedicated to hot chocolate. Mmmm. We splash out and go for Green & Black’s organic hot chocolate, which is well lush. Want to be a extra naughty? In stead of adding milk or cream to your mug of hot stuff, try a scoop of ice cream. Husband came up with that one last year, and it is heaven in your face. You will never be the same.
And last but not least, mulled wine. Husband was first introduced to mulled wine at my cousins wedding reception and loved it so much that 5 years later when we got married, we had a mulled wine reception. Every year when we decorate our Christmas tree, our tradition is to crack out a bottle of red to accompany our decorating. We do cheat and use those mulled wine tea bags with a couple extras {orange peel, brandy etc} when it’s just the two of us, but when we have guests, we go whole hog and make it from scratch.
I couldn’t resist taking a picture of our cork collection while I was down there. Whenever we visit a new country or have a special occasion we always keep the cork, write on it and add it to our collection. There are a lot of special ones in there – our engagement cork, new years corks, our honeymoon in St. Petersburg, Russia, and ones with cheeky stories …
So what are your favourite winter drinks? Are you old school like us, go for the usual beer or wine, or do you go for fancy cocktails? Eggnog is another one of my favourite Christmas drinks but a tier of eggs and cream wouldn’t really have looked very Christmassy on our cart. xx A
