Advent Calendars 2018 - delight or disappointment

[FelicityLemon]

Due to having a birthday not long before Advent starts I now have two calendars.
Yankee Candle - Day one - green tealight and holder - pine scented. I wouldnt usually buy a pine candle but it's quite pleasant.
Joe and Seph's popcorn - today was salted caramel, quite nice, not so exciting I'd buy a full size bag.

My tea today is blackcurrant, though the main ingredient is actually rosehip. It's a beautiful deep purple colour, and would make a lovely winter sorbet I think, or added to winter fruit salad while it was poaching.
I'm old enough to remember when children were given a daily spoon of rosehip syrup during the winter for the Vitamin C. I still keep rosehip syrup in the larder to spoon over ice cream or add to rose & strawberry puddings.

Yes Felicity I made a salt circle from black Himalayan salt for extra safety!!
Turmeric seems to be the wonder ingredient of the moment, it's in everything, a vegetarian friend actually does put it in every meal. She uses it a bit like a condiment, but the downside is that all her meals taste exactly the same.

Day 14

Nivea - Got to open day 4 today honey face mask

Body Shop - British rose body scrub

Look at you with your different items. I am back to Belgian chocolate and caramel, but at least all 8 of the candle scents are nice.

Day 15

Today's tea is peppermint, fennel and rose, which sounds lovely and summery, so I'm hoping a cup of it will banish thoughts of the freezing rain that has absolutely poured down all day.

Yesterday's tea was lemon verbena and honey, which was delicious and soothing.

Surprise surprise another white choc and caramel popcorn to go with the winter glow candle. `Not that there is much glow here it is so dark, wet and gloomy.

Givenchy Interdit here - a surprisingly decent-sized bottle too. IN the last few days I've also got some Ambient Hourglass powder, which I've been wanting to try, and an Aveda volumizing tonic that I don't quite know what to do with.

Oops I forgot yesterday! Day 15

Nivea - Little pack of face wipes

Body Shop - Strawberry lip balm

@sitthakim sounds nice. Maybe the tonic is to volumise your gin?
Crackling wood fire and toffe apple popcorn again here.

I've loved my Debenhams one over the last few days, the products are a lot bigger.
Got a good sized elemis cleanser this morning.

The Pukka tea today is "Berry" and includes elderberry, rosehip and blackcurrant. It's cheering on a miserable wintry day, and is a beautiful colour. Now if I could find a cashmere cardigan that colour, I'd be a happy woman!

The Givenchy l'interdit sounds fab, is that their new fragrance?

Got a Ouai leave in conditioner in my Debenhams one this morning. Decent sized.
Can't wait to try it.

I'm happier the last few days, it seems to have redeemed itself

Both repeats for me with banoffee popcorn and cookie scented candle. Second time around I am less keen on the banoffee flavour though

The tea today was vanilla & cinnamon and I added some honey as well. Just what I needed to warm me up after putting the bins out at the crack of a frosty dawn. How I loathe that job!

Missed out yesterday and today!

Day 16

Nivea - Little pot of moisturiser

Body Shop - Almond milk & honey body butter

Day 17

Nivea - Shower cream

Body Shop - An eyelash/brow brush

So today is raspberry cheesecake and pine candle. Can't now remember if I had raspberry cheesecake or raspberry someting else before, but nice enough.

My tea today is lemon & green tea, a cup of summer tastes on a dismal winter afternoon!

Mine is fortnums, I have stopped opening it. Only used 1 items so far.

I have an eye-wateringly expensive ESPA calendar full of tiny samples. Today's offering was a repeat of an earlier day. Lesson well and truly learned for next year.

@snowplop I think the very least we should get 24 different things. I have the cinnamon candle again which I may buy in a bigger size as it is really growing on me and cookies and cream popcorn again which is unexciting a second time round.

I've forgotten to update this at all! Here's the current woodland scene. (Excuse odd shadows - so gloomy here!)

That's adorable Freezer!

Today's tea is fennel and cardamom, a warm spicy after lunch drink.
I'm quite a fan of cardamom, I add crushed seeds to melted chocolate, then when it's solid, break it up to decorate chocolate puddings.

Freezer, that's lovely!

Really pleased with Look Fantastic .. some kind of ESPA overnight cream today

The Givenchy is quite sweet and heavy - not quite my usual sort of thing but it's good to try new things, and it settled down nicely over a day.

Love the idea of the tonic volumizing my gin!

Today's was a Bobbi Brown lipstick (in a shade that I think will work quite well on me, unlike the fuschia Nars one that I got at the beginning of December). I've also had an anti-ageing cream and an overnight facial over the last few days: the calendar's obviously aimed at women of a certain age.

Strawberries and cream popcorn with a pine scented candle. Ill have to go back at the end to see if I've managed a repeat combination. I'm now holding out for something a bit more special on the 24th.