I’ve been a bit crumpy lately and I think one of the reasons is my total lack of Christmas feeling. I love Christmas, it’s my absolutely favourite! But the sun and summer in Melbourne doesn’t really do it for me. Don’t get me wrong I love the heat and the weather but it has nothing to do with Christmas. I think if I had my stuf and could put up my Christmas decorations it might be slightly different but this year the Christmas tree and my advent candle holder have to do. At least today on Lucia I’m trying my best to force my Christmas feeling to come out from its hiding place. I have my glögg from IKEA heated up, the Christmas tree is lit and I’m watching the traditional Lucia broadcast from Swedish TV. Thanks SVTplay!

Det funkar sådär att påtvinga julkänslan. Jag saknar fortfarande julmust, julskinka med senap, vörtbröd, pepparkakor och lussekatter tex. Blir det fler jular i Australien får jag nog se till att vara lite mer organiserad.

The first glögg of the year has just been tasted at our house. It smelled amazing, tasted alright (not the best glögg I’ve ever had) and it was dark outside so I pretended it was winter instead of summer (I’m blonde so it worked). In other words, quite a success, but I did miss the pepparkaka and lussebulle

We went grocery shopping at Woolworth’s last night and just like Simon’s mum said there was saffron to be found in the spice section. No having to ask the cashier for it when you check out and pay like in Sweden, no it was right there on the shelf. Mum bought saffron in Sweden the other day at Apoteket for 30 kr for 0.5 g so comparing to that it’s more expensive here. I paid $6.58 for 0.5 g ( ca 45 kr), that’s $13,160 (!) per kilo!!. Maybe you can get it cheaper somewhere else but it’s a very expensive spice indeed.

I realised I probably need another package though before I start my saffron bun baking. I haven’t really been baking that much in Australia before and I have another dilemma that I hope to get some help with. We don’t have self raising flour in Sweden so maybe someone can shred some light on when I should use the normal flour and when I should use the self raising one.

Christmas is only a month away and even though I don’t have exactly have the same Christmas feeling here as I probably would in Sweden this time of the year I’ll try to make my first Christmas living in Australia a nice one, combining the Australian traditions (which basically includes drinking beer and having BBQs, with some Swedish ones). It’s over 30 degrees today so there will be no baking on hot day like this but I would like to make some saffron buns on a less hot day. Only one issue, I have I no idea on where I get saffron from. It might be that you can get it in the supermarket as in Sweden (I haven’t really started investigating this yet) but I thought maybe one of you reader’s have the answer.

Just like NK in Sweden have their traditional Christmas window, so has Myer here in Australia. We went and had a look after we went out to a friends birthday dinner last night. I loved it, and I got a little bit of Christmas feeling which otherwise is hard given it’s basically summer.

Watch a behind the scene video below