I have never ever made an advent wreath or had my own advent candles. At home we had a candle holder for advent and that is pretty much what we used every year to light a candle every Sunday leading up to Christmas. I loved lighting the candle on Sunday’s and it genuinely was something I would look forward to in the lead up to Christmas – like a little countdown.

It was only when I had gone back to Denmark for Christmas, did I watch in awe as my grandmother, mother and aunts sat down together one afternoon with coffee and biscuits for some ‘hygge’ time and made their own “adventskrans”. This was something that my mum had done growing up but stopped doing out in the tropics, because it really was not easy to find a lot of the stuff needed and she is obviously being a bit hysterical worrying about having fans and candles surrounded by plants that can go up in flames.

I learnt as I got older, that getting together with friends and family to make your adventskrans, adventslys or any form of Christmas deco was quite a common thing and of course the hygge thing to do. And it really is a good way to spend sometime indoors when the weather is less than agreeable. Having only made a few kalenderlys (calendar candle) whenever I was visiting family, I decided it was about time I make my very first for our new home.

So, I got a white ceramic bowl from a charity shop (for less than a pound!), some Oasis sponge and candle holders from my mother in law after raiding her garden for evergreens and pine cones, little red mushrooms, red berries and 4 candles – I chose red ones.

As much as I wanted to make it ‘au naturel’ I knew the berries from the holly would probably not make it through to Christmas. So just for a pop of colour, I caved and got the fake ones instead. The little mushrooms were just too cute to resist!

After measuring and cutting up the oasis sponge with a kitchen knife, I then let it soak up some water. And what is the right amount of water or time? Well, I did not have a clue. I did find out though that you should never submerge it or run it under a tap cause it will cause air bubbles which mean there will be dry foam where the stems are thus not hydrating them. It took about 2 minutes for mine to go from floating on the surface of water to being submerged.

I then started trimming my evergreens and began the process. And this is the end result.

On hindsight, I wish I had sharper scissors and gloves cause holly sure is prickly!