cookies and ice candles

Yesterday, a Swiss friend invited us round to her house to make cookies. We were only there for a couple of hours and not that many cookies got made but the kids had a lot of fun, we also made jingle bell bracelets and origami Santa's. Andrea had already done some baking so I sampled real stollen for the first time, so good! The afternoon was really interesting, I was the token Brit, Andrea is Swiss but lived in Chile until she was eight, then we had a Malaysian an Aussie and a Japanese in the group too. We all had completely different Christmas traditions and stories from childhood and to learn all this over coffee and cookies was just lovely.

We had to leave early because we had also planned to go and see the ice candles, Ebi-kun had a quick power nap in the car then woke up raring to go. We managed to time it just right, the sun was just setting as we got there. At the farm they had set out all these ice candles, some were in shapes, such as this cow (next year is the year of the cow/ox)

The farm was also giving out free soup which was very welcoming since it was cold, two other families we knew turned up, so there was more chatting as the kids played and the candles glimmered. The farm worked start making these candles at the start of the month, I'm not sure how, the 'holder' part is ice then inside was a tea light candle. We discovered that they do this every year, I feel that a new tradition has just started :o)
This was taken from the top of the barn steps, the building to the left is the ice-cream shop, and despite being half frozen we still ate ice-cream LOL.