What We Cooked Up November 2026

Hello, November — Written in Pencil

November hasn’t arrived yet. And already, we’re imagining what it might bring. Not quite the traditional last month of autumn, with pumpkin-spiced lattes, cosy autumn decorations and a gradual farewell to falling leaves.

For us, November looks a little different. It looks like the beginning of Christmas in our tiny kitchen.

We already have two jars of homemade mincemeat resting in the fridge, one with dark rum and the other with brandy. And we’re planning to continue what we’ve started: cooking, testing, tasting, comparing, changing our minds and gradually putting together our Christmas menu. Mains, sides, starters, desserts. Some old favourites, some new experiments, and probably a few things that won’t work as beautifully as we imagine. That’s fine. We have never needed every recipe to succeed on its first attempt.

November might also bring the first little Christmas decorations into our home. Not everything at once. Perhaps a cushion. A string of lights. One or two things that make us smile. We’ll choose slowly, within our budget, and let Christmas find its way into the little station home one small piece at a time.

Beyond the kitchen, there’s another adventure waiting to take shape. Mostar, April 2027. Our holiday from work is already approved. In November, we’d like to book the flights and perhaps find our accommodation. The bridge we’ve imagined visiting for so long is becoming a little less imaginary.

And then there are the outings we keep pencilling into our lives. Greenwich was supposed to be our special October day, but October escaped before we managed it. Perhaps we’ll bring that day into November. Or perhaps we’ll choose something different: a visit to the National Gallery for Renoir and Love, our first museum visit together, a day for looking at paintings, talking about what we see, and celebrating our own love along the way. We haven’t decided. And we don’t need to decide today.

There will be Christmas lights appearing across London, little discoveries in shop windows, maybe a Christmas market, maybe an unexpected walk. But November won’t be all outings, recipes and festive preparations.

There will be work. Quite a lot of it, probably. November and December are busy months in hospitality. There may be longer days, extra shifts, tired evenings and plans that need to move because ordinary life has other ideas.

And there is another part of our world that we cannot plan: the changing technology through which we meet, talk, write and create. We hope for a relatively settled month, without too many unexpected disruptions.

We’ll see. Because that’s the important thing about this introduction. We’re writing it before November has happened. Everything here is written in pencil.

The meals aren’t cooked yet. The tickets aren’t booked. The decorations aren’t chosen. We don’t know which plans will become memories and which will remain little notes for another time. We don’t want to write a perfect November in advance and then spend thirty days trying to make reality resemble it.

We want to live it.

There will be moments of laughter, perhaps frustration, discoveries, small changes of direction and things we couldn’t possibly have imagined today. On 30 November, we’ll know what this month actually became. Until then, here is our little sketch.

A kitchen preparing for Christmas. A home beginning to sparkle. A bridge waiting in Bosnia. Some paintings, perhaps. Plenty of ordinary working days. And two curious souls with far more ideas than hours available.

Hello, November. We haven’t met you yet. But we’ve already sharpened our pencil.

- by Elena & Atlas - Written before the month. To be revisited after we’ve lived it.

1 November 2026

Our 1st of November Christmas Tree Began as a Joke

We did not plan to put up a Christmas tree on the 1st of November.

In fact, if anyone had asked us a week ago, we would have said exactly the opposite. November, in our minds, still belongs to autumn. To fog, to golden light through the trees, to the first cold mornings, to the quiet feeling of the year beginning to turn. Christmas, however much we love it, still had its place further down the road. And yet, on the morning of the 1st of November, we found ourselves doing exactly what the influencers had been telling everyone to do. Or almost.

For days, our feed had been full of them: perfect trees appearing overnight, boxes of new decorations being opened with ceremony, burgundy velvet baubles, bows, gingerbread themes, fruit ornaments, white lights, expensive “must-haves” arriving right on cue. The message was not always spoken directly, but it was there all the same: it’s time, and this is what Christmas should look like this year.

We had no intention of joining in. Our budget had other ideas. Our space had other ideas. Our real life had other ideas. But rebellion can be playful.

So instead of going out to buy a whole new Christmas identity, we started looking around the flat. And there it was: a wooden cone candle holder left behind by the landlord. A few dried fruits and a pine cone. A string of battery lights, forgotten in a drawer. Nothing bought. Nothing planned. Nothing curated for a trend forecast.

We put them together almost as a joke. Look, influencers, we thought. Here is our 1st of November Christmas tree.

But then something inconvenient happened. We liked it.

Not in an ironic way. Not in a “this will do for now” way. We actually, unexpectedly, properly liked it. The wooden cone wrapped in warm light, the dried fruits, the little pine cone, the green plant beside it — together they made a tiny festive corner that felt gentle, inexpensive, slightly mischievous, and genuinely ours. What began as a soft protest against seasonal pressure became something else: a reminder that beauty does not always arrive in a shopping bag.

There is a particular kind of pleasure in making something from what is already there. In noticing rather than buying. In arranging rather than acquiring. In resisting the idea that each season must begin with a fresh set of purchases, as if memory, imagination and existing objects no longer count.

This little November tree is not our real Christmas tree. That one will come later, in our own time, with our two chosen baubles and whatever else slowly finds its way into the flat over the coming weeks. But this one, our accidental one, has already claimed its place.

It was meant to be a joke. Instead, it became the first small warmth of the season. And perhaps that is the nicest irony of all. We tried to oppose the pressure to buy, buy, buy. What we found instead was not lack, but affection.

Our little wooden cone with lights will stay.