Well, lets warm things up a bit and have a party!

The Fabiola & Sing Sing Christmas party will take place in Oxford, UK, on Wednesday 2 December 5-10pm.

Celebrate with us and enjoy a fabulous 15% discount on every item in our shop, as well as complimentary drinks and nibbles!

Email us if you would like to come and celebrate with us, and help us get through the champagne and cocktails!

Looking forward to seeing you! Merry Christmas!

St Helen & St Katharine is an independent day school for girls in Abingdon, Oxfordshire. As it’s a local school to us we’re very happy to support their charity fund-raising endeavours by taking part in their annual Christmas fair – especially as we get to sell our wares in the wonderful Old School Hall.

And this year the fair promises to be bigger and better than ever before. The fair takes place on Saturday 14th November, with doors opening at 10am.

Look forward to seeing some of you there! It could be the ideal opportunity for you to pick up an object of desire in time for Christmas, and have a fun day out at the same time!

If you do come to the fair this weekend, please don’t be shy – say ‘Hi’ and tell us that you read the blog. We promise not to bite!

Of course, if you can’t wait (or can’t make it to the fair) you can always find an array of gorgeous and beautiful items in our online store.

They would look wonderful either on the Christmas tree, or as the centrepiece of a table display. I must admit, they really helped me forget the rain this weekend and truly get into the Christmas spirit.

I think most of the rest of the country must have been feeling the same way, as in nearly every front window I can see a Christmas tree beginning to go up.

All we need now is snow… hmm, fingers crossed.

Anyway, snow or no snow, the Christmas elves have wasted no time in adding these new decorations to the Christmas decorations area of the Fabiola & Sing Sing store, so be sure to check them out!

Thank you to to all of you who have encouraged and supported us at Fabiola & Sing Sing, while we have grown into something to be proud of.

Many of you gave us wonderful feedback, especially regarding our website, while we ironed out the creases. It’s looking a little less crumpled and we are so excited that we decided to throw a party!

The Grand Opening of the Fabiola & Sing Sing website will take place in Oxford, UK, next Tuesday, 16th December 5-10pm.

Celebrate with us and enjoy a 15% discount on every item in our shop, as well as complimentary pink champagne and Christmas Caipirinha cocktails!

Email us if you would like to come and celebrate with us, and help us get through the champagne and cocktails!

Oh, and I nearly forgot. As a special early Christmas present to our faithful blog readers – you can take advantage of a 15% discount of all the products in the Fabiola & Sing Sing online store by using web code WEB1208 at the checkout. This special promotion is running until December 20th – so don’t delay!

Looking forward to seeing you! Merry Christmas!

Okay, so we all want to do the right thing for the environment, and some people aren’t so keen on sending Christmas cards anymore – so have you thought of getting out the old video camera and lip-synching a seasonal festive song to send to your friends and family?

No? Well, you should!

Because that’s what Jared Foster and his family did – and it looks like they had a whale of a time making their vintage Christmas movie:

I love the vintage retro style of their Christmas video – it really brings back the spirit of Bing Crosby and old black-and-white movies… just like a true Christmas in fact!

And after all the relatives have stuffed themselves silly with turkey and Christmas pudding on the big day, a video like this might be just the thing to put on the TV. Hey, it would make a change from “The Sound of Music”…

So, the party is looming, and I have the perfect Christmas cocktail to invoke the warm sand without ignoring Christmas. It’s the Christmas Caipirinha!

(It took me forever to get over the Cosmopolitan, thanks Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte and Miranda, and kept on ordering them long after they had gone out of fashion. But, alas, the time had to come and I have moved on.)

Anyway, my fave-du-jour is the Caipirinha. So, I’m serving a winter version for this year’s festivities.

For one serving, mix as follows. Or make in large batches, without the ice and store in the refrigerator, ready to serve guests as they arrive. Add the ice to each tumbler, when you pour the pre-made cocktail mix.

• 50ml Sagatiba Pura Cachaça
• 2 lime wedges
• 5ml Sugar syrup
• 2 Blackberries
• 3 Raspberries
• 3 Blueberries
• A pinch of ground Allspice

Squeeze the lime wedges and drop into a tumbler
Add berries, sugar syrup and allspice. Mix and squish around.
Fill with ice cubes.
Add the Sagatiba Pura Cachaça.
Mix.

I will also be serving Champagne (of course!) and this year I decided that as I am invoking hot sand and sunkissed skin, I will be offering up Tsarine Brut Rosé NV Champagne.

It tastes of summer fruits and cream, and comes in a gorgeously stylish twisted-glass bottle.

Both Sagatiba Pura Cachaça and the Tsarine Brut Rosé NV Champagne are both available from your local Waitrose, but you can probably get them from other supermarkets or wine merchants if you don’t a branch close to you.

It proved to be such a hit with the grown-ups and kids alike that I was really excited to see another book out by the same dynamic duo.

Custard and Crayons with Polly & Jago contains more fun ideas with clever monthly combinations of recipes, craft and art projects, as well as feeding your children’s mind’s with many of the stories, rituals and traditions behind the holidays, festivals and celebrations throughout the year.

The people behind the book are pretty interesting too. Sarah Rowden is one of London’s best loved “foodies” and owner of St Helen’s Food Store, in Kensington, London – a favourite haunt of the dishy David Cameron.

Meanwhile, Sarah’s collaborator Joanna Vestey is an award-winning photographer who has been on assignment for many charitable organisations such as the Red Cross and World Vision.

I must also mention the truly fantastic drawings by Mark Beech, who has illustrated the delightful ‘History of Warts’ and ‘Troll Trouble’ series of children’s books.

In my experience, great illustrations like this really add to a child’s enjoyment of a book and can help feed the imagination even further.

The Polly & Jago series of books come with a hearty recommendation from me – you need never be at a loss again when it comes to keeping the kids occupied!

Happy entertaining!