The Twelve Nights: Frankincense and Myrrh Gift Set

1. Each evening from Christmas night to 6 January, set a tealight in the dish, light it and lay a pea-sized piece of resin on the mesh above. Open a window a crack.
2. Frankincense alone on the first night, myrrh on the second, both together on the last. Let the scent rise in the room where you sit, and never leave the warmer unattended: the metal gets hot.
3. Before bed, write one line in the notebook, something you noticed or dreamt; old custom gives each night one month of the year ahead. Let the warmer cool before you lift the mesh out to clean it.

• A resin warmer in polished plated brass, 11 cm long, with a lift-out mesh over a dish for a tealight: the resin warms gently and no charcoal is needed. Handmade in India.
• About 50 g of frankincense resin in a lidded tub.
• About 50 g of myrrh resin in a lidded tub.
• Two sets of six vanilla-scented tealights: 12 in all, one for each night, about 4 hours each.
• A handmade lokta-paper notebook from Nepal, 15 x 12 cm, 45 leaves, cream with blue cotton flecks and a wrap-over cover.

The pieces arrive together in one parcel. They are not gift-wrapped.

The chalk mark reads 20*C+M+B*27: the year split around three letters that are read two ways, as the initials of Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar and as 'Christus mansionem benedicat', 'may Christ bless this house'. Since 1959 the Sternsinger have gone from door to door as a collection for children in need, the Aktion Dreikönigssingen.