The First Evening Here: Housewarming Gift Set

1. Put the salt holder on a windowsill, set a tealight in it and light it. Seen from the street, it is the first light in the new window.
2. Fill the dish in the roof of the little house with water, add three or four drops of cedarwood oil, and light a tealight inside the house. Top up the water before the dish runs dry.
3. Make two cups of tea, set them on the coasters and sit for the length of them. Put both flames out before bed, and never leave either burning in an empty room.

• A tealight holder of white Himalayan rock salt from Pakistan, hand-carved, about 10 cm across and 600 to 800 g; no two are the same shape.
• A white ceramic house oil burner, about 12.5 cm tall, with windows cut into its walls. The tealight goes in at the back, water and oil in the dish in the roof.
• 10 ml of Virginian cedarwood essential oil, steam-distilled from Juniperus virginiana, the tree once called pencil cedar.
• Six vanilla-scented tealights, 3.7 cm across, each burning for up to four hours: one for the salt, one for the house.
• Four jute and cotton coasters, 10 cm across, with an ivory cotton border.

The pieces arrive together in one parcel. They are not gift-wrapped. Salt is fragile at the edges and draws moisture from the air: keep it in a dry room and wipe it only with a dry cloth.

Russian has one word for hospitality built from the two gifts at the door: khlebosolstvo, from khleb, bread, and sol, salt.