Friday catch-up

The not-quite festive one

I’m not feeling very festive yet but I’m wearing last years Christmas socks (WYS Gingerbread yarn) and eating iced gingerbread if that counts?

November seems to have been the longest month for some reason, and whilst I’m not sad about that I have the feeling that Christmas is going to be upon us in a heartbeat. It’s going to be one of those years when I think I have plenty of time to get everything sorted out, only to find that it’s already the day before Christmas Eve and all the stores have sold out of wrapping paper.

"Christmas is doing a little something extra for someone." -Charles M. Schultz

I have already pared back a lot of my festive activities and I’ve spoken before (probably at length) about how I no longer undertake stressful gift knitting, but this article really spoke to me - offering a practical and gentle approach to self care that would be useful at any time of year, but particularly right now.

How To Be Slow & Gentle With Yourself

With that in mind I thought I would do something a little different for this week’s catch up and share a few things I am doing to embrace a slower season:

• Making proper hot chocolate with whipped cream and marshmallows

• Adding cinnamon to porridge and just about anything else

• Lighting scented candles - this is a must in our house at Christmas

• Making gingerbread - I finally found the perfect recipe

• Going through my leftover sock yarn, combining colours for another sock yarn blanket

• Clearing out old project bags and making a finish it or frog it list. I might not see in the new year with completely empty needles but I’d like to free up the mental load a little.

• In the same spirit I am going through my remaining yarn stash, having successfully pared down this year, and making sure that I go in 2024 with a photograph of each yarn and a basic spreadsheet.

I don’t believe for one second that I am actually going to knit any of these patterns - especially not this year - but there’s nothing wrong with a bit of fantasy knitting at this time of year. And there’s always next year to plan for after all:

Christmas blanket pattern- link here

Hibernate - a fabulous adaptable pattern that you could downsize to something smaller

Really cute Christmas tree motif - this could be used for last minute (washcloth-sized) gifts if you were so inclined.

This weekend sees us putting up the village Christmas tree - always a bit of a battle - with much heated debate over the exact placement of the lights (and a bit of nervous excitement as we see if the rather bodged-together electrical system of the village hall will take the strain). It’s worth it though as the lit up tree will be the first thing people see as they come into the village for the next few weeks and it’s always a welcome sight on a dark evening.

After which we will be contemplating our own house tree and debating whether it’s better to decorate now, or wait until our elder son is back from Uni. Decisions, Decisions.

The delightful ‘Robin in a Fir Tree’ from The Yarny Octopus

I’ve also taken delivery of some rather lovely Christmas self-stripe sock yarn from The Yarny Octopus which I hope to cast on - so stand by for plenty of sock yarn spam next week.

December book club

At the time of writing our poll for this was a tie between 2 titles so it looks as though we will be reading either:

Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus or The Christmas Bookshop by Jennie Colgan - or both I guess if time allows. The book club is open to all paid subscribers and you are very welcome to join us.