Advent Essentials

With only 10 days left until Christmas I thought I would share with you some of my advent essentials to help survive the festive season.

Books:
A good book is always necessary when it is too cold to go outside. One of my favourite things to do is curl up in the evenings under a blanket and read a book, especially when you can hear rain outside. I would recommend a fantasy book, or a book which you have previously read and loved. In the holidays it is nice to read something which you can loose yourself in and does not take to much effort to read.

Drinks:
I always find that a nice hot drink is the best thing to have after a long walk in the cold. At the moment i love 'Options: Belgian Hot Chocolate' and 'Whittard Lemon and Lime Instant Tea'. These are both warming drinks which are seriously simple to make and are easy to store.

TV:
I always love to have a good television series to watch during the advent season. This helps the evenings pass quickly and I don't usually have much time to watch series' during the term time. Some programmes that I loved were 'Ugly Betty' and 'Sherlock'. 'Ugly Betty' has 4 seasons and so kept me going for quite a while, especially with each episode being around 45 minutes long! Sherlock, on the other hand, is not as long with only 2 series available on DVD at the moment, each consisting of 3 episodes. The short series is understandable though as each episode is 1h 30m long.

Candles:
For me, Christmas is the time when it is important to have scented candles around the house. Cinnamon, orange and clove are some classic winter scents. Every year we get an Orange & Cinnamon candle from Heal's which always makes the house smell so festive. Yankee candle also do many Christmas themed candles and they are all on offer at the moment due to their advent calendar event.

These are some of the things which help put me in the festive mood and I would love to know what your festive traditions or essentials are, let me know in the comments :D