The Laboratory

Fazer jellies. Reindeer soup, Marianne. Doris. Moomins. Overwhelmingly indigestible liquorice.  There's only one place outside Finland where you can find all of these things at once, and we go every year. It's the London Finnish Church Christmas Fair. Food, drink, crafts, sausages on the grill, and all of the best Christmas treats. So good, they had to run it for two weekends, not one. Here are some of the cheery helpers and their wares. Kiitos!

Now that London is in Tier 2 and we can do a bit of shopping, we're also off to pick up our Nordic Christmas order from the Finnish Church in Rotherhithe. Sadly there won't be a market as well, but we enjoyed some online Finnish carols earlier in the week.  And here's our favourite photo of Sarah meeting a Moomin!

Here's a round-up of all the stuff we didn't manage to fit in on any other days. Thanks for all your contributions, including Karen who sent this photo of a watermelon decoration. Next up, a Christmas Reith. And some other stuff:

This year was an exciting one at the Finnish Christmas Fair in London. It's 100 years since Finland gained independence and there are lots of celebrations. You could buy Finland-shaped cookie cutters that said "100", and special edition sweets (mainly liquorice, a Finnish favourite). It was also a great chance to meet a genuine Moomin, and buy some Doris biscuits. Bonus Advent Calendar of the day: For those of you who love The Box Of Delights, the Bodleian Library has devoted their calendar this year to a whole range of eclectic items linked with the book and series: http://www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/advent2017

This year's must-have tree decoration are these tiny Moomin mugs from Finland. They don't look tiny in the picture but seriously, dolls at a dolls' teaparty would complain that they looked like espresso cups. Every year Arabia (a pottery) and Iittala (a homewares firm) produce a special Moomin collectors cup, and have gone for the ones you see here this year. You can get them from our favourite Scandinavian store, Skandium , which has 4 branches in London. We also got there a tiny penguin decoration (who looks just like Pingu) and a Penguin Donkey . But when we went to Finland last year we visited the Arabia factory and Iittala outlet store and got LOADS of pottery and glassware to give our home a Scandinavian feel!