Getting On With Things (secular xmas edition)

So, this morning just before 7am, I finally got around to incensing my house and setting up the wards, such as they are, on the new place.
I figure that, since we’re heading on the whirlwind tour of the Relatives in the next couple of days, plus having a lot of people over for the housewarming, that I should probably get that done while I still had the chance.
 
I’ve been (re-)using – big surprise – the tissue paper out of our wedding gifts to wrap/decorate the baskets (two cardboard gift boxes plus three repurposed and reuseable mesh waste-paper-baskets) I’ve filled with preserves for 5/6 recipients (the sixth is getting hers in about a week, so I don’t need to do the wrapping just yet).  Everyone is getting a sellection of:
lemon-raspberry-groundcherry curd
balsamic roasted tomato sauce
choke cherry jelly (made with neighbourhood fruit)
pickled rutabaga (we have gone through both of our bottles of this chez nous already, so here’s hoping everyone else likes them as much as I do)
strawberry-rhubarb jam
spicy peach chutney
garlic-dill cucumber pickles
 
 
Now to sort out the last of the stocking-stuffers and pick up some art supplies.  Whee!
 
 
TTFN,
Meliad the Birch Maiden.