Dear Friends

I hope you’ve had a wonderful time and have enjoyed the love of friends and family this season and now, welcome to Twixmas, these beautiful days between Christmas and New Year.

We’ve had a full house this Christmas and my famous LIZTINI cocktail has gone down well, here’s the recipe and it’s a doddle to make and will be perfect if you’ve got some visitors over in these next few days.

LIZTINI


  • 50mls Vodka

  • 50mls Limoncello

  • 35mls Pomegranate Juice (or you can use Cranberry)

  • 10mls Lime Cordial

  • 10mls fresh Lime juice


Pop each ingredient into a cocktail shaker or large jam jar plus some ice-cubes, give a vigorous shake, strain and pour into a martini glass. Enjoy!

If you’ve never read his iconic best-selling book, I urge you to treat yourself to Gary Chapmans The Five Love Languages; it is truly revolutionary and shows how each of us will have a predominant love language, be that… gifts, time, physical, acts of service, or words of affirmation. Of course, this plays out well within the context of a relationship with your spouse, close friend and members of your family, but also stretches to the people you do life with and when you not only learn about your own, but those people too, it is incredibly enlightening. When as a couple we did ours, I asked Mark what he felt his love languages were (thinking I knew) and he claimed them all. No pressure then!

 

There might be people in your world that you don’t technically give gifts to, but you’d love them to feel loved and appreciated, so here’s an idea you might like around the theme of Love Languages.

If someone loves to receive gifts, then they’ll of course love this time of year! But what if they’d just love time with you? Time is a precious commodity and most of us feel we don’t have enough of it, but if you have an older person in your life, it’s generally all they want especially if they live alone. So, how about parcelling up some ‘pockets of time’ not in the least bit to be patronising, but more to give them things to look forward to. A hand or foot massage, a gentle stroll, a game of Scrabble, looking through a photo album or watching their favourite movie together will cost you nothing but to them could be treasure. A promise of a back massage, hug or snuggle on the sofa totally speaks to someone who loves physical touch and ‘vouchers’ from you to be redeemed for some help with shopping, decorating, dog walking, window cleaning, garden weeding or babysitting are cherished by someone who values acts of service and to write some beautiful, thoughtful words of affirmation, memory, positive scriptures or poetry, or a hand-written letter that can be read over and over again will mean the world to a person who values words and being affirmed.

So, when you look at it like this, there are many resources at your fingertips you might not have thought of that will cost you little but reap huge reward to the recipient.

Enjoy these few days until the start of 2026 and if you are looking for some lovely bargains, check out some great offers we have here.

My love, Liz xx