WIP Wednesday - Christmas prep, and Happy Solstice!

I find this compilation by Tori Amos strangely compelling and addtictive...

(plus, in the Holly and the Ivy choruses, you can kind of get a vibe of it's pagan origins...)

(Oh, and Kim, I found a version with visuals *entirely* by Thomas Kincaid! With Kincaid bubbles!)

While marking the longest night of year and the return of the light, I am finishing up my lingering Christmas gifts...  It has been a treat for me this year - it's the first Christmas in about 5 years that I haven't been slammed with deadlines.

I've been able to make use of my bounty of herbs - both the ones I've dried throughout the year and the ones I am able to harvest fresh in the winter-weather....

 I combined those with my small harvest of apples to make herbal jellies (this year, sage, marjoram and rosemary), along with intensely scented pomander balls made from the apple pulp (see above. They look kind of like truffles :-).

 I also squeezed in some homemade sugar-scrubs and herb-infused scouring powders...

 Recycled tins holding the most aromatic mixed mint/lavender/rosemary/thyme potpourri imaginable!

 Add in some herbal-scented bath-salt and 'gingerbread' facial scrub and I had the makings of some delicious smelling gift bags. :-)

A few more bags to deliver. A few more presents to wrap. A few late cards to address. Then maybe I can put my feet up and do a puzzle or something.

Tonight, I am meditating over my "Solstice resolutions" however. It feels like an even more significant and appropriate night than New Years in the quiet darkness of it all....

I hope you are warm and reflective where ever you are.... :-)