Countdown to Christmas! 8 days...

For only the fourth time in my life, I'm celebrating Christmas in winter. Growing up in the southern hemisphere, I associated Christmas time with fun in the sun, icy drinks, beach time and sunset at 8:30pm.

Only when I moved to Taiwan in 2008 did I experience my first cold Christmas. It was weird, but I also kind of liked it, because it reminded me of the movies, with people dressed really warmly in gloves, scarves and boots, and obviously the holiday songs about snow and reindeer and sleighs made a lot more sense to me.

Along with a winter Christmas, came Starbucks' holiday drinks (*mouth waters uncontrollably...) Loves it! In South Africa, we don't have Starbucks, and the very first one I ever had was a Gingerbread Latte, which was one of the two holiday drinks in Taiwan that year. Since then, this drink has remained my favorite for Christmas. (I still don't understand why they can't have them year-round?)

Unfortunately, this year, Starbucks does not offer the Gingerbread Latte, but the Toffee Nut Latte is also delicious and a close second as my favorite.  Hmm... tastes like Christmas in a cup!

Continuing the countdown to Christmas... 10... 9... 8 ...