So you have a wine lover in your life and a gift-giving occasion coming up. What to give them besides, say, a bottle of wine? Following are a few suggestions.
Does the person also like to bake? How about a set of wine-themed cookie cutters? I’m not sure if you can find purple sugars to decorate sugar cookies shaped like a bottle and a wine glass, but maybe good old red would work. Or you can frost the treats with a nice burgundy color icing.
Your drinking darling might tend to have cold feet – literally – and need to keep those tootsies warm. Wine socks would be a much-appreciated present.
Maybe the wine drinker in your life likes to dry glasses with a dish towel to leave them streak free. Who doesn’t need a fresh white towel – with a wine saying printed on it.
For white wines served at a dinner party, nothing looks nicer than a painted terra cotta jar made to hold a wine bottle bathed in cold water.
And a wine tote makes a lovely gift, especially when it’s branded.
You could also give a set of wine glass charms, little rings that fit around the stem of the glass, each with a unique charm, so guests don’t mix up their glasses. Or a special bottle opener. Or a set of unique hand-painted glasses.
But for the wine sipper who reads, what would be better than a wine-themed bookmark to go with their own copy of Murder Uncorked? The recipient can enjoy a glass of their favorite vintage while engrossed in a mystery featuring an amateur sleuth who manages a wine bar. Your dear one can mark their stopping point with the bookmark – except they’re going to want to keep turning the pages.
Raise a glass to Cece Barton, a widowed single mom and recent L.A.-to-California-wine-country transplant who suddenly finds herself at the center of a murder investigation in this sparkling new mystery series from Agatha Award-winning author Maddie Day.
As the manager of Vino y Vida Wine Bar in Colinas, Cecelia “Cece” Barton’s first Alexander Valley harvest is a whirlwind of activity. Her twin sister, Allie Halstead, who owns a nearby Victorian bed & breakfast, is accustomed to the hustle and bustle of peak tourist season. But Cece barely has a moment to enjoy her new home in between worrying about her estranged college-age daughter, juggling her responsibilities at the bar, and navigating the sticky politics of the local wine association. Just when it seems things can’t grow any more intense, Colinas is rocked by a murder within the wine community . . . and Cece is identified as a possible suspect!
With her reputation and her livelihood on the line—and the Sonoma County deputy sheriff breathing down her neck—Cece has no choice but to open up her own murder investigation. Tensions are already high in the valley, as a massive wildfire creeps toward Colinas, threatening homes, vineyards, and the vital tourist trade. And now, with a murderer on the loose, and Cece’s sleuthing exposing the valley’s bitterest old rivalries and secret new alliances, Colinas feels ready to pop! But with Allie’s help, Cece is determined to catch the killer and clear her name before everything she’s worked so hard for goes up in flames . . .
Reprinted with permission from Kensington Books.
When I was a little girl, one of our family traditions was that Santa brought our Christmas tree on Christmas Eve after my brother and I went to bed. When we woke up on Christmas morning, our bare living room had been transformed into a wonderland of lights and presents. It was pure magic.
Another tradition was our Christmas Eve meal. It was the same every year, served only on that special day—creamy chicken velvet soup, mushrooms stuffed with crabmeat, Sally Lunn bread, and a decadent chocolate mousse.
together with my brother and his family to watch the show. We know it so well we can recite all the lines with the characters and sing all the songs, but the tradition evokes sweet memories we all hold dear of Christmases past with Mom and Dad.
Since my husband and I don’t have children, I started my own tradition with my brother’s girls when they were tiny. Each Christmas season, I’ve taken a photo of them with the nutcracker we have in our foyer. The annual pictures are a treasure as I’ve watched them grow from sweet little girls into beautiful young women—as you can see in the first photo I took and the most recent shot. This tradition will continue for as long as they humor me!
Since we enjoy traveling, we decided to bring a small item back from every trip to hang on our Christmas tree. After thirty-four years of marriage and many trips, our tree is now laden with ornaments—aka, memories. Decorating our tree every year is a wonderful trip down memory lane as we reminisce about all of the places we’ve seen and experiences we’ve shared together. I’ve included photos of a few of the ornaments in this post.
under the tree were a key part of Christmas when we were children, as time goes by we’ve come to value the things that can’t be wrapped in shiny paper more than material gifts. So each year we take a day just for us. We set aside our to-do lists, put work on the backburner, and spend a full day focused on each other. We’ve gone to coffee shops, afternoon tea, the zoo, dinner, the botanical garden—and a host of other activities. We usually end the day with hot chocolate, watching a classic Christmas movie together.
As a former smokejumper, arson investigator Bri Tucker knows her way around fires. But after a mysterious blaze takes the life of a former colleague, Bri inherits a curious puzzle from him that raises questions about several fiery deaths. Someone, however, doesn’t want her picking up where he left off in search of answers.
A retired CIA operative in small-town Maine tackles the ghosts of her past in this fresh take on the spy thriller from 