A handmade christmas: chocolate nut toffee

This year we've tried to make most of our Christmas gifts, and we chose things that we think our close friends and family would probably enjoy. I'll share some of those ideas here, because I truly believe the best gifts are handmade. This first batch was chocolate nut toffee, which I made for my book loving friends (with a little help from A. because the toffee part is kind of tricky). The recipe is from Apples for Jam, one of my favorite recipe books.

on playmobil

I've never been a huge Lego fan, and instead my childhood was filled with some great memories of playing with Playmobil with my brother and my best friend. We'd spend long afternoons playing with a few different sets that had been gifted from my aunts who live in Brazil (at the time they were more popular there than here), taking over the whole living room floor with our make believe games.

So it was a nice surprise when a few weeks ago I discovered that Playmobil had launched a line called Playmobil 1-2-3, suitable from 18 months. I had planned to get S. a set of Lego Duplo for Christmas, but guess what she'll be having instead ?

And guess what else I discovered ? There's a Playmobil Christmas market ... I almost ordered this for myself, but managed to have some restraint ...

...

(photo above: Dresden Christmas market)

We arrived back from our trip a couple of days earlier, having changed our return flight at the last minute due to a possible airline strike. Then the strike was cancelled but we were back in Lisbon already so there wasn't much we could do. We did visit all the places we had planned to, and although we had to cut short our visit to Cesky Krumlov we had a great time anyway. I'll try to sort out the photos soon and post a full trip report.

So with a whole weekend on our hands and all the unpacking done we decided to spend Saturday morning shopping downtown, which is something we hadn't done in a while.
Here's something we picked up to send to a friend in Switzerland ...

And then we decided to bake some cookies ...

Made this apple cake for the third time, and each time it seems to only get better

(I've decided to change the blog's template so if you're not seeing this on a feed you might've noticed a few changes and probably a few glitches ... I'm still working on it, hopefully I can finish soon)

it's that time of the year again ...

 
Time to go visit some Christmas markets, that is ... This year we decided to visit Prague - I was there almost 15 years ago, and A. has never been, and supposedly the Christmas market is amazing. We also plan to spend a few days in Dresden, and then in the lovely town of Cezky Krumlov. See you back in 10 days !

entrelac tee

Pattern: Betty's Tee
Yarn: Debbie Bliss Donegal Luxury Tweed Aran, 3.5 skeins
Size: 33 (to give a 32)
Ravelred here