Holiday Prep with a Local Flair

Living in one province and celebrating Christmas in another offers some logistical challenges. Sure, you have to do all of your Christmas shopping a little bit earlier and buy things that will survive a plane trip in a suitcase. But when most of your presents consist of Christmas baking, you have to get creative.

A lot of the more complicated baking, such as cookies with frosting on them, have to wait until I fly back (so if you’re looking for me anytime in the three days before Christmas, check my Mom’s kitchen first). But some things I’ve been making in advance, freezing, and then crossing my fingers they don’t crumble on the way home. It has meant that this year’s stout brownies have a local flavour to them:

This year they’ve been made with Garrison’s Martello Stout, which is one of their seasonal brews. And since the recipe only calls for 1 ¼ cup beer, I had some leftovers to drink. While I normally only drink beer you can see through when you hold it up to the light, I can’t let good beer go to waste. And this stout is really good because it’s not too heavy; it’s not unlike Millstreet’s Coffee Porter.

I also made a statement with this year’s Christmas cards. I frequently complain that Canada doesn’t do enough to support its local artists, so I decided to do my bit. This year I went local and bought hand-printed cards from Inkwell Boutique. The store itself is really cute and I could have happily bought all the cards I could possibly need next year in one trip. I also coveted the paper-based Christmas ornaments, but given that all of my decorations are sitting in a storage locker back home that didn’t seem too practical. The store’s website is http://www.inkwellboutique.ca/

Buying cards made by local artists certainly wasn’t the inexpensive way to go but that’s not the point of sending cards, now is it? I got to send little pieces of art to some of the family and friends that care about.  Most of the cards I chose were made from the store’s presses:

I also picked up two from Anna Stowe, an illustrator from Dartmouth (which is just across the harbour from Halifax):

So I hope you all find a way to shop local for the holiday season.