A new Cranberry Apple Tart Herbal Tea

My oldest niece works in sales and travels a lot, so I was tickled when she told me of being on a work trip and going in The Spice & Tea Exchange to look for some new teas. Now, she's about to turn thirty, but this is a kid who was treated to tea parties from the time she was a very little girl, so when the man at the store asked her if she needed any help selecting some tea, she said no, thank you, that she just wanted to look around. Then he kept on bugging her, and he finally asked, "Do you know about tea?" Well, she was offended by that (how dare he question her!) and said, "Yes, I know about tea!" I'm lucky she didn't leave before getting me a couple of new varieties, including this one. 

Even if you didn't know what kind it was, all those lovely bits of dried fruit and tiny cubes would probably tell you that it was cranberry and apple.

I steeped mine in this Tea Forté tumbler I found on Amazon a few years ago (love this style of tumbler), and I enjoyed multiple steepings using the same basket of loose tea.

While it was tart, as you would expect, from the cranberry, it also had a nice richness from the apple and spices, and I enjoyed it very much. (Just don't question my niece about her tea-selecting skills. Ha!)

A new color palette for winter

Because January is such a gray, dreary-looking month, I've been in the habit of leaving up some "winter white" décor during this month. My late husband gave me the idea, as we had agreed that it was jarring to go from the bright lights and cheerful colors of Christmas to the dark-gray tones we usually see out of the window in January. So now, I hold back some "winter whites" and think of this as Christmas Decorating 2.0 to keep things cheery. I recommend it!

My young friends came over for tea yesterday, and we used these blue-and-white Rosita snack sets, four of which I found for under five dollars at Goodwill a few years ago. My friends asked why I still have one Christmas tree up (I'd taken down all the others), and I explained that this was a wintertime tree. Basically, it's the same aluminum tree from Christmas but with only blue, silver, and gold ornaments. 

My friend Deberah gave me this pretty vintage tea set one Christmas, and it is perfect for my winter decorating.

And I added a few winter whites here as well. I hope to add a new tea trolley and that longed-for perfect hutch to my dining room this year, and if that happens, I anticipate a lot more seasonal decorating!

Some fun new teatime gifts

I'm entering 2026 with quite a few new tea-ish gifts I received from friends and family for Christmas, so I thought I'd share them with you! First, my friend Gina surprised me with this Keurig, which I can use for making coffee or tea. I do like a single cup of coffee first thing in the morning, and it's nice to not have to measure coffee grounds anymore.

I was pondering how to store pods without resorting to ordering a rack that takes up more of my precious (and way too little) counter space, so I'm using a vintage cider pitcher. If any of you have tried and enjoyed any teas in your Keurig, I'd love some recommendations!

My niece Madison's family gifted me with some new teas from the Spice & Tea Exchange. First up was this White Chocolate Peppermint Green Tea.

Yum! It is so rich (from the chocolate, I imagine), and I've been sipping it pretty quickly!

My friend Beth and I officially don't swap "Christmas gifts," so she cleverly told me she wanted me to have some "friendship gifts" this year, which include this darling porcelain box shaped like a teapot. Never had one of these before, and it will be great for storing my teapot and teacup jewelry.

When I was at my friend Kathy's last week, she surprised me with these teacup pajamas she'd told me about seeing at her local Belk. I had immediately run to my Belk to look for them, but all they had left was a stack of them in size 4X. So she ordered me some and had them waiting at her house when I got there, and boy, are they comfy. Trimmed in velvet too!

And since we are longtime crafting buddies, I was so happy when she also had waiting this set of stamps and dies and stencils featuring teapots and teacups and honey! I love that these designs are colored with stencils, so she taught me a new technique as well, and now I envision myself stenciling up a storm in 2026.

Last but not least is a from-me-to-me gift. I was shopping the clearance tables at Home Sense on Saturday when I found a Santa mug soap dispenser I HAD to have. I would have gladly paid the original $14.99 for it but was quite tickled that it was marked down to $3.50. Now I can't wait to use it for Christmas '26!

So did you get surprised with any tea or tea-themed gifts over the holidays?

Coconut Mela tea from The Chai Box

I came home from visiting my friend Kathy in South Georgia on New Year’s Eve and rang in the new year as usual: watching old movies, tracking the neighborhood fireworks (not as long this year!), then sleeping in the next morning. But one thing I did do on New Year's Eve was try this wonderful new tea my friend gave for me Christmas, the Coconut Mela blend from The Chai Box.

Have you ever heard of The Chai Box? I had not and was happy to make their acquaintance (and they're just up the road in Atlanta, for goodness' sake!). This cozy, spicy blend contains black tea, roasted coconut, cardamom, fennel, cloves, ginger, cinnamon and vanilla. The smell is as divine as the taste!

And this is what I sipped on New Year’s Day as I cracked open my new Leuchtturm bullet journal. I got sold on these journals a few years ago because they are just blank books with dot grids so that I can design my own journal exactly the way I like it, and a single book lasts me two years. Alex gave me my last one, which I just filled up (it was rose pink), so I decided to go with mint green this time. What will the new year hold? I don’t know, but I’m trusting the Lord to be with me each step of the way—and I hope for more new teas to sip along the journey. And if you're a fellow stationery lover, I'd enjoy hearing what sort of planner/diary/journal you'll be using this year!

Wishes for a Happy New Year!

 

Wishing you all a safe celebration today and tonight and a Happy New Year!

Some exciting news to end the year on!

So the year is ending with a lovely bit of news I learned on Saturday: My niece Amelia and her husband, Korbin, are expecting a baby girl!

The only person who knew the baby's sex was Amelia's best friend, who, after talking to the doctor's office, had arranged for the "confetti cannons" that shoot out the colored confetti, so prior to the big reveal, not even the happy parents knew! We were all asked to pick a button reading either Team Boy or Team Girl, and I was firmly on Team Girl, as were my nieces and sister, shown with me here. We love our family's little boys, but it was time for a girl, and we were correct!

Around noon, we gathered at the fellowship hall of the church her dad pastors and enjoyed a tasty array of foods.

Milo's Famous Sweet Tea was on offer, as it often is at our family gatherings, but for good luck, I went with raspberry lemonade this time, just to be sure my choices were all as pink as I could make them!

Amelia had asked if I would make my cucumber sandwiches, and I was happy to do so, and we also had taco cups, chicken salad croissants, cupcakes, and lots of fresh fruit, chips and dip, and a veggie tray.

I loved the look on Amelia's face when she learned she is having a girl! Amelia is the niece I took to tea at the American Girl doll store when she was a little girl, and while the store in Georgia has closed, I learned there is one in Nashville, and I've already told Amelia I want to take them to the store once the baby arrives and is old enough to go to tea. We are all so excited at this happy news, and if you happen to come across any baby items in the coming months that are pink and tea-related, I would sure appreciate all the shopping alerts you can provide!

Getting "mugged" this Christmas

I was so happy to find a nativity-themed mug to use Christmas Eve and Christmas Day that I shared the photo of it on all my social feeds yesterday, and since several Facebook friends asked, it is by Rifle Paper Co., and I found it at Dillard's. I discovered this line too late in the season, and they were already sold out of the platter and dessert plates, so at least I have this beautiful mug. I love the stationery by Rifle Paper Co., and I'm delighted they offered this design.

Another mug I got this year came from the white elephant gift exchange at a friend's Christmas party the other night. Considering some of the truly horrible white elephant gifts (like one of those creepy porcelain little-boy dolls from the eighties), I was pretty happy with my mug.

And my friend Liz gave me this "Oxford comma" mug, which is both humorous and a reminder that I'll be returning to work soon. At least I'll have some choices of new tea mugs to use while I'm at the computer!

Merry Christmas!

 

Christ the Savior is born! Merry Christmas, friends!

This year's tea-themed trees

Wow, Christmas Eve sure got here fast this year! And I haven't paused to take as many photos of my tea-themed ornaments as I usually do, but I figured I could at least share photos of my tea-themed trees themselves this year. The small white one in the living room is the one my little neighborhood friends helped decorate, and I decided that wherever an ornament landed was where it would stay, because I learned they have a knack for remembering exactly where they placed them!

They were completely responsible for decorating this small silver tree (which I usually place in my office) with my mini teapot and teacup ornaments and said it should go on the mantel. Okey doke!

And in the foyer, I have my little pink feather tree, which is still heavily laden with teatime ornaments.

I think the only new ornament I added this year was this Santa mug ornament I got in Pigeon Forge. Since putting up these trees, I have discovered two more boxes that I *know* contain tea-themed ornaments, and I haven't even lifted the lids. My goal for next year: one big tree with all of the tea-themed ornaments on it. And I wish you all a very merry Christmas!

Christmas Tea at The Cake House

Yesterday after church, I enjoyed a much-anticipated Christmas Tea at The Cake House in Newnan with my friend Beth!

It was a rainy, drizzly afternoon, but inside, the charming, cozy European bakery had transformed into a Christmas tearoom for the afternoon, and Beth and I had a lovely time as we always do when we're together and enjoying cups of tea!

Our three-tiered tray was brimming with food, and we had both skipped lunch and were nice and hungry.

Good thing! The sandwiches included egg salad and arugula on a croissant, salmon and whipped cream cheese (two each of those), and a lemon dill cucumber sandwich. As always, the cucumber was my favorite.

The orange-cranberry scones were served with fresh strawberry jam and fresh clotted cream, the nice, thick kind. The scones were perfectly baked, and that fresh jam was absolutely delicious.

I was stuffed by the time we got to the sweets and had to take some of them home to enjoy. They included brownie cheesecake, Ben's of London cookies (dark chocolate and ginger), fruit and nut biscotti, the Queen's coconut custard cake, and petit cheesecakes with a phyllo crust. My favorite was the Queen's coconut custard cake.

A selection of tea bags was offered, so I wish they would upgrade that to properly prepared loose tea, but I had no complaints with my caramel pear tea from a tea bag! And their Old Country Roses china looked especially festive amid all the Christmas decor.

And check out their whimsical oversized gingerbread cookie cutters on the mantel! (So now I have a new idea for next Christmas.) Anybody else been to tea this Christmas? I'd love to hear about it!

Catalogs, wishes, and Christmas dishes

When I was a little girl, nothing beat the excitement of getting that Sears Christmas catalog in the mail. Today's children will never know the joy of having that big honkin' catalog arrive in the mailbox each fall. I would inhale the scent of the paper (I've always loved the smell of paper and ink) and pore over the pages, trying to make the difficult decision of precisely which dolls and toys I wanted to ask Santa to bring me. Many of those old catalogs are online now, and I recently came across the Montgomery Ward catalog from 1961, which features more grown-up toys, some of the Lefton Christmas dishes that are still around today.

I have seen enough of these pieces in stores to have observed that some seem more crudely made than others, and after comparing some of my own such dishes, I've decided that the real Lefton pieces must be the ones with that darker, almost blue-green hue. You can't quite tell from my photo, but the plate at far left is actually a short pedestal plate. When I photographed it with the others, it became apparent that the color isn't the same as the real Lefton pieces. (But hey, I gave, like, two dollars for it, and I'd do that again. Pedestals are great for varying the heights in a display.)

The color is right on these small mugs, perfect for teatime, but the glaze looks kind of foggy in the photos but is actually just a very glossy, pearlescent kind of glaze. I intend to ask a ceramicist friend about this!

On some of these mugs, the paint on the red berries is starting to flake off and isn't as bright as on this one. Considering how much I paid for them at the thrift store (twenty cents), I can't really complain, but I would like to bring these back to life if that's possible. It was fun to see some of these old pieces in a vintage catalog. If only we could go back in time and shop at those prices!

A great deal on Candy Cane Lane tea

I know I'm not the only one in these parts who is a great fan of Candy Cane Lane green tea, a beloved holiday blend from Celestial Seasonings. A few years ago, some local tea-lover friends and I agreed to be on the lookout for it, notifying each other of any sightings. Yes, you could always order it on Amazon, usually at a higher-than-the-grocery-store price, but it was always fun to find it in the wild. I haven't seen it in the wild this year, but I checked one day last week and found that Amazon was selling six boxes of it for … $8.86? Could that possibly be right? "Must be for just one box," I thought, but nope, it was for six whole boxes. Add to cart, baby!

When my tea arrived two days later, I was thrilled. I haven't had Candy Cane Lane in about two years, and now I'm stocked for a while. Then I was checking my Amazon order history and noticed that I could reorder the Candy Cane Lane tea … for $28.48. What? I also saw something I'd not noticed before, that next to the new price was a link titled Price History. I clicked it, and sure enough, it showed that price trends for this tea had varied wildly in recent weeks!

I said all that to say this: I'm going to be watching the price of this tea in the coming weeks, and if it reaches such bargain levels again, I'll stock up. And as a bargain lover, I'll now be clicking Price History on other items as well. (And I'll be sipping lots of this delicious tea as I do so!)

A Santa mug shelfie

Longtime readers are used to seeing some of my Santa mugs every year, so I thought I'd share a new "shelfie" showing the ones that have made the cut (so far) this year.

And while this Lipper and Mann tea set isn't technically a mug, it seems to go well here. Although … it's starting to bother me that Santa looks so grumpy. He needs an attitude adjustment!

My favorite mini Santa mugs are these two Howard Holt pieces, a gift from a blog reader many years ago.

And this little guy remains my favorite Santa mug for actually enjoying tea. He's the perfect size for a single cup.

Finally, this ceramic sleigh holds more of the mini Santa mugs (although Santa and the knee-hugger elf both look a little crazed, don't they!).