A Gift from Sweden

Last week, I received a wonderful gift from Sweden!  I was so excited as I love gifts (who doesn't?), especially if they are from lovely new friends in lovely places!  My dear blogging friend Poppins decided that I should try a certain Swedish Christmas sweet (Juleskum) she had mentioned in a post (I have a very sweet tooth).  So she went to the trouble of sending me a wonderful and thoughtful care package!

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You can imagine how excited I was when I opened her parcel with all these things!

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Not only did she send me two packages of Juleskum (also called tomteskum), she also sent me a gorgeous Swedish decorating magazine called "Hem & Antik" (which means "home and antique" since it's a beautiful blend of contemporary and antique styles).  See, my Swedish is improving already!  And she sent me Christmas decorations and a lovely vintage postcard.

  The juleskum are very sweet pink marshmallow fruit candy in the shape of Santa Claus.  They are delicious, fruity, chewy, and very, very sweet.  So far I have eaten one every day (I am rationing) but really want to just keep them to look at and smile at!

Poppins also gave me an adorable set of felt ornaments for my Christmas tree - aren't they lovely?  They remind me of shortbread cookies and look good enough to eat. I love them because they are so thoughtful and pretty and seem very Swedish to me. 

Here's how they look on the tiny tree in my kitchen:

We're taking the decorations down tomorrow, but I'm happy I got to enjoy them for the past week.  They look just like cookies, don't they?

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I've also enjoyed reading "Hem & Antik" immensely.  Let me tell you, the Swedish decorating magazines are everything you'd expect and more (I wonder what they'd charge for a subscription to Canada?).  I took some photos of pages in the magazine, which is full of gorgeous and unique rooms, and lots of white!  I'm starting to pick up a few Swedish words too, but boy is it hard to read a magazine in a language you don't know at all!  I kept looking at the captions over-and-over until I realized it really wasn't helping!

I loved the bare branch Christmas "tree" in the photo above, decorated with old-fashioned things.  It is so elegant.

The white room above is picture perfect with its real winter foliage!

I really love this elegant room - the placement of a beautiful table at the end of the bed is such a wonderful idea.  Isn't this a perfect vignette?!

Thanks Poppins for your thoughtful gift!  

Your gift really lifted my spirits at a difficult time!

~ T H A N K   Y O U ~