December's mail

Today is the last day of 2012! Yes, already, can you believe it?
My last post of the year will be the monthly mail stats! :) December was a really little mail month, I only got 4 letters!

(sorry, no picture this month, I completely forgot to take one! :S)

4 letters in 31 days, that means one letter a week only! Yes, really little mail month indeed. But that's kind of normal: I've been so behind with my mail lately, I owe letters to so many people! And when you don't send, you can't receive: pure logic! :D I'm catching up quite fast at the moment due to holidays, so I can hope for more mail  in January :)

Average distance travelled: 3344.75 km
Shortest distance travelled: 597 km from Köln, Germany
Longest distance travelled: 10418 km from Melaka, Malaysia

I'll make another stats post with the mail stats of the whole year. I intended to post it today too but I don't have my letter notebook with me here so I don't remember how many letters I got and sent each month.

I hope you all had a nice December month, and I wish you tons of letters in 2013!

Love, Tári

Yay, I've been productive!

Today is also time for the weekly mail update! Which will only be an outgoing update, since I'm not at home to check the mailbox these days.
I have work to do during these holidays (some exams to prepare and a part of my thesis to write), but as I have two week and a half free, I decided to take the first one off from studying, a well deserved break I think. Therefore I've been letter productive! 4 letters in one week, I don't remember when was the last time I wrote so much. This summer probably.

Alright, let's move on to the mail!

I first wrote a letter to Lou in the UK. I made the address label out of wrapping paper ;)

Then I wrote to Marita in Norway. I love the picture on the paper. I wish the landscape on Christmas looked like that! Snow all over! That's heaven, isn't it?

I used the same paper again for my letter to Anne Mette in Denmark :)

More winter themed paper, with snowmen this time, to Kate in Czech Republic:

I just hope my penpals like winter, maybe not as much as I do, but at least a little bit, because I'm writing all my letters on winter paper these days! :P

Have you been writing a lot around Christmas?

Love, Tári

Late Christmas update

Hello all! How are you all doing? I hope you're all doing fine and haven't eaten too much on Christmas day :P
In my last post I told you I would show you what I got for Christmas, and then silly me forgot... I can be so scatterbrained sometimes!

Anyway, better late than never, right? So here we go :)

From my mother, a book from the wishlist I gave her: "The Leopard" by Jo Nesbø

Another book, from some friends of my family: "Sisterhood everlasting" by Ann Brashares. I'm not a chick-lit fan (I used to be when I was younger), but the Sisterhood series was among my favourite books when I was around 15-16 years old. I didn't plan to read the last book of the series but since I got it, I read it and it was enjoyable.

From my uncle, a scarf. I love the colors :)

My grandparents give me money so that I can buy what I want (it'll be books, how surprising!). No pictures, because I haven't bought the books yet.

Cute earrings, from my penpal Anne Mette from Denmark

The Christmas card she included in the package

My penpal Marie from Germany literally spoiled me! She's way too nice.
And look at the wrapping paper she used! I love it since it has mail on it :D

She sent a beautiful Christmas card

Air mail envelopes and a sheet of stickers

Much tea, and a chocolate (already eaten, hehe)

And the bigger part of the package. Look at this cuteness! It gathers two of the things I love the most: snow (with the snowman), and tea (with the cup). You can't see it well in the picture but the cup has a lovely Christmas tree on it :)

That's all! I'll get one more present on Sunday though, when I'll celebrate Christmas/New Year with my cousins. Each year I don't get so many presents, but I don't mind, because I don't like Christmas for the presents! They're just a nice extra :)

Hope you've been really spoiled by Santa, my dear readers! And merry late Christmas! :)

Love, Tári

Christmas challenge days 24-25

24- Your letter to Santa

Dear Santa,
You know, I'm "old" now, and it's been a while since I stopped believing that you really exists, I mean, I know you're not a real man, but just a fictional character hidden in everyone's Christmas dreams. But if I want to write you this letter today, it's to tell you how much I love you. Yes, you're receiving a love letter, Santa! :D I love you, and I just can't imagine a Christmas without you. What would be Christmas without Santa?! You are a part of this magical atmosphere I feel around Christmas. And you know, I love all kind of magic.
If I only had one wish to give you, I would ask you to bring smiles and happiness in everyone's life. Everyone should have a reason to smile everyday. So that's the present I want you to bring me a smile on everyone's face. A smile on every face I see. The world would be so much more beautiful if everyone was smiling! So, do you think you can give me this present, Santa, please? I swear, I've been a very nice girl this year :)

With love,

Tári

25- Describe your day. Merry Christmas!

So, Christmas for me starts on December 24th, as we celebrate Christmas Eve. We had a nice and delicious dinner with my mother. Then she read some pages of the Holy Bible, because she's religious. I read some with her because it's just a tradition we have, I'm not religious myself. Then, we took some pictures (we always take pictures on Christmas day!), and watch a Christmas related movie, this year it was "Joyeux Noël" (I've already told you about this movie earlier in my Christmas challenge posts, in the first one I guess) And after the movie, it was past midnight, so, time to open presents! Maybe I'll do another blog post later to show pictures of what I got, it'd be better than describing all here, what do you think?
That's for Christmas Eve, after there was the "real" Christmas day. We spent it, as we do each year, at my mother's cousin. As always we ate enough for one entire week at least, but it was yummy! She definitely knows how to cook! ;) The meal was really long, we started at 1pm, ended at 5pm (I guess) Then, we stayed around the table for one or two hours more, discussing.
It wasn't the most amazing Christmas I've ever had. Actually we spend it with a part of the family to which I don't feel so close. I'm more looking forward to Sunday, we'll have a sort of "second Christmas" with my cousins who're coming from Paris to spend some time with us. It'll be much more fun then!

Wow, I can't believe Christmas is already over... December runs out so fast...
Well, I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas day, and that you enjoyed reading my Christmas challenge posts! I personally really enjoyed writing them. I'll miss it now!

Once again, Merry Christmas! Or Joyeux Noël as we say it in French :)

Love, Tári

Christmas challenge days 21-22-23

21- Number of presents under your tree

Well, let me count: so there are my present to my mother, her present to me, the presents we're going to give to my grandparents, uncle and cousins. There also are two presents (one for me and one from my mother) from close friends of our family, plus the presents we plan to give them. And finally the presents I got from my penpals: one from Anne Mette from Denmark, and one from Marie from Germany (this one actually counts several little gifts, but I count it as only one present as they all come from the same person). So, overall, that makes... *counts* 13 presents.

22- Your favourite Christmas character

Santa of course! I'm still a child at heart, I like seeing Santa figurines! There are quite a few Santa ornaments on my tree, and I love it ;)

23- Why do you love Christmas?

Actually, what I like the most isn't Christmas day itself, but the few days/weeks before, because the Christmas spirit and magic is stronger then. I love all the Christmas spirit: the lights in the streets and the houses (those which are decorated), the decorations in shop windows, the Christmas markets... Preparing Christmas is quite a lot of work, and usually I don't like spending hours in shop centres, but when it's to look for Christmas gifts for my dearest people, I don't mind, I even like that (well, when the shops are too much crowded, then I don't, though). Decorating the house is one of my favourite moments. I also love Christmas carols, well, everything about Christmas. And then when it's over, I have a sort of emptiness feeling :/ So I don't want Christmas to come too soon, in fact.

Love, Tári

It's mail time!

Hej! Are you ready to read about and see my mail of the week?
I got two letters and a postcard, but I only got one mail day, as they all arrived on Thursday.

Here are the letters. I haven't read them yet, because I decided to steal an idea I read in a blog post this summer to offer me a special present for my 20th birthday: one month of letters reading. So as my birthday is January 17th, from December 17th on I'm not reading any letters. I guess it'll be terribly hard to resist the temptation to read the letters before, but the reward will certainly be worth it!
So all I can do for the moment is staring at the stamps :)

These are new Malaysian stamps for me. I had never seen them before.

I was however allowed to read the Christmas card. It's from my penpal Ramona in Germany.

I've received quite many cards so far, and as I like them a lot I decided to show them!

This board on my desk is normally used to put my favourite photos, but around Christmas time it becomes a Christmas cards board :)

And the rest of the card stand on the shelf, around my books :) (it's just a part of my books' collection, I have more at my mother's)

I also wrote two letters, but haven't sent them yet, because I don't really trust the post service during Christmas time, there are so many letters and packages sent at that period that some got lost :/  So I prefer to postpone the sending of these letters to after the New Year.
Anyway. The first letter is to Simona in Lithuania:

And the second to Sille in Estonia:

Yes, both letters are winter themed! I love winter so much, so I love writing on winter-ish paper :)

Hope you had a great mail week, readers!

Love, Tári

Christmas Challenge days 17-18-19-20

17- List some holidays events you attend

None. I don't even go to the midnight mass because as I've already said, I'm not religious. Hmm, wait, if visiting Christmas markets is considered as attending a holidays event, then I attend this one :) I love Christmas markets! Though the ones we have in France are nothing compared to the beautiful and big ones they have in Germany for example.

The Christmas market in my city, Lyon. (picture stolen from Google Pictures)

18- Describe your Christmas tree. Favourite ornament?

Well you've already seen a picture of my tree in the previous post as I uploaded a picture of it there. My favourite ornament... I don't think I have one, actually. They all are beautiful and they fit perfectly together on the tree!

19- Your dream mistletoe kiss

We don't have this mistletoe kisses tradition in my family. But if we had, then my dream kiss would be with my boyfriend, when I have one (and if I one day have one! I'm most likely to spend all my life alone, socially awkward as I am!)

20- One place you would love to celebrate Christmas

Definitely in Lapland! In a small wooden house, with a warm fireplace, and surrounded by snowy forests full of reindeer, moose, and who knows, maybe elves and fairies too ;) Doesn't it sound like a dream? 

 Love, Tári

Christmas challenge day 7-13-14-15-16

7- A detailed explanation of your house decor

I postponed this one because I hadn't decorated my house yet on December 7th, but now I have! So let me show you some pictures, it'd be better than a long and maybe not so clear explanation:

 My Christmas tree always look the same year after year but I still love it <3

There were some ornaments left, so I found them a use ;)

Nativity scene

A candlestick with a nice snowman :)

And last but not least, Santa! ;) This Santa is very old. It used to belong to my great grand father! I love it.

13- The best Christmas gift ever received

I think it was the gift I received when I was 6 (well, almost 7, as I was born in January): my very first bike! Actually, I had a bike before but it was a children's bike, with 3 wheels, to learn more easily. I was soooo happy to finally get a real bike because I had been wanting one for very long! And this year the weather was pretty hot for December month (it was around 10°C I think), so I could try the bike right away! Ah, nice childhood memory :) Now this bike (which was red and yellow :) ) is hanging in the garage. My mother wanted to sell it but she never found someone who wanted to buy it. So she said it'll be for her grand children ^^

14- A Christmas wish

I don't wish for so many things for Christmas actually. I just want to spend a cosy Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with my dearest ones, and well, if it could snow that'd be more than awesome :D

15- Opinion on holiday weather? Ever seen snow?

Of course I've already seen snow! It's even my favourite weather! ;)

Well, as you probably know if you know me a little, I simply love winter and cold weather, however weird it can sound to you (I know most people prefer summer and can't stand temperature below 0°C) So the colder Christmas is, the happier I am! :D The perfect Christmas weather for me would be snow, much snow, and a temperature below 0°C, like -5°C. That'd be perfect :)

This is my Christmas dream :)

16- Your favourite Christmas sent

I'd say it's the smell of candles, when you've just blown them out. I've always had a soft spot for the smell of candles (I don't know why) and this smell is associated with Christmas in my mind because we always put candles on the table for Christmas Eve and Christmas day :)

Love, Tári

I feel a Christmas spirit over here...

Yes, I really feel the Christmas spirit has come now, especially since all the mail I got this week was Christmassy :)

A Christmas mailbox, just because I felt like posting it ;)

The diet of my mailbox these days actually looks like that:

Yes. After periods with no mail at all (or so little) - like the two past weeks- it's a kind of mail boom. This week, my mailbox smiled everyday :) I haven't received many letters though, only two. But as Christmas is soon, I got quite many Christmas cards.
You want pictures now? Sure! Here they are!

First my penpal Andra from Romania sent me a package with tea and a Christmas card. She's so nice! And all the teas are so yummy!

A close-up on the card because it's lovely!

Then I received this lovely red envelope:

Look, it has Christmas stamps on it! :D

And inside was a card from my penpal Teresa!

And inside the card:

Next piece of mail is my first letter of December (yes, I needed to wait till the 12th to finally get a letter.) It's from my French friend in Germany, Audrey. She also sent a card, which I find so classy, all in black and white :)

Then came another letter (second letter of December, yay!) from Almante in Lithuania:

And oh! Another Christmas card! She said the two mice on the pictures are us. She's giving me my letter. How cute! <3

Continuing on the Christmas mail topic, look at this beautiful handmade card I got from my Finnish friend Reetta!

I've already put the decorations she sent me in good use :)

Oh! And look at the wonderful Christmas stamp on the envelope!

And the priority sticker!! How lovely!! *-*

(Okay, I should calm down now. Christmas gets me way to excited, like a 5 years old child :P)

To end the incoming mail pictures, let me show you what I got today: a card from my lovely Jenny in the Netherlands. It's a Swedish card actually, she bought it in Stockholm this summer:

That's all for the incoming mail, now let's move on to the outgoing. Unfortunately I haven't so many pictures to show you. Only one, actually.
It's a letter to Andra in Romania (yes, the girl who sent the tea package). I forgot to take a picture before sealing the envelope but you can see a sample of the paper I used on the left:

Yes, very Christmas themed letter! I hope she'll like it :)

That's all for today. Christmas break is soon so I'll finally be able to catch up with my mail, yay! Only one more exam to go before (not the easiest though). I'm so looking forward to having some free days.

Love, Tári