In the Bleak Midwinter

 It's a couple days after the Winter Solstice and a couple days before Christmas. Our Christmas this year is quiet: just us, no traveling.

There's a little tree on the windowsill, and E. keeps taking the Nativity scene my grandmother gave me on adventures. Good thing they're sturdy. I played around with making a holly wreath, and put gardening gloves on my mental "to-get" list again. I have Christmas-themed bags for the Etsy shop cut out and ready to sew together, but I'm guessing they won't sell for a while given that the Christmas season is nearly over, so I'm not in a hurry to get them into the shop, since listings do cost a bit of money.

There's been snow, and ice, and then rain and slush. The temperature went down and then back up. We're back to snow right now, which makes me glad that we don't have many plans for the weekend, other than visiting J.'s grandmother, and the roads to her place are almost always clear. There's also the Christmas Eve service, late at night.

Christmas is that weird time of year. I like Christmas music, and movies, and the bright lights and decorations. I'm less enthused about the whole Santa Claus thing and while the story of the Nativity is nice, and familiar, it's less comfortable this year than it usually is. I love Christmas-time, and I have mixed feelings about it. So I listen to David Sedaris' "Santaland Diaries" and some of the more tongue-in-cheek essays about Christmas on This American Life, and I watch The Family Stone and brood over the whole Christmas thing, since I'm that sort of person.

In the end, it'll be a quiet day, with good food, and that most Christmassy of movies, Die Hard.

New Year's Knitting Plans

We arrived home from our Christmas trip this afternoon. For once, we had good fortune with the roads on the journey north and the journey south. The initial plan, to leave on Saturday, was scrapped in favour of leaving on Boxing Day because it was supposed to snow Saturday. I stress more about travel than I really need to, so I spent the ride home reminding poor J. to drive carefully. The litany makes me feel better and doesn't really bother him. We had an audiobook playing, which is what helps him on long drives. (Terry Pratchett's Raising Steam. One more CD left to finish!). And now we are home, and it's just the three of us again, which is pleasant. E., who had a lovely time at her grandparents', is now happily trying to draw on her piece of toast with the wrong end of a pen. She's glad to be out of the carseat.

As it is now officially After Christmas, I'm thinking about making knitting resolutions for the New Year. Several years ago, I knit a lot of socks. Then I had mostly hand-knit socks in my wardrobe with a few store-bought ones that were still good and headed off to knit other types of items. I still knit socks here and there, but not as many. Time has passed, the socks have been worn many times, and more than a couple pairs are starting to wear out. It's time to make more.

I have a lot of sock yarn, and a lot of sock patterns, so it's mostly a matter of choosing where to start. First things first: WIPs. One pair is suffering from Second Sock Syndrome, so it's time to give the poor thing its mate.

Afshari is from Hunter Hammersen's Silk Road Socks, which is just a fantastic book all around. I haven't gotten around to finishing the poor pair of socks yet. I ended up grabbing a blue yarn for this one, so mine looks similar to the one in the book, just in a different shade, and more solid. The pattern's nice because the cuff is interesting, but the foot is stockinette, so it's a relatively swift knit. Pictures when I remember to pull out the camera and take them.

Next on the list is a pair of socks that are simple enough to use one of the patterned yarns with. I have a few patterned yarns lurking around that need using up. Some are partial skeins that may go into something else (very stripy baby cardi?), but a couple are more than enough for a full pair. I'm currently torn between a stripy brown yarn that has been ripped out several times and a stripy green stretchy yarn that I've yet to knit with. I'm thinking of doing this pattern. The Vanilla Latte socks are simple and easy with a little bit of interest to keep me going.

And after that, one in a solid with a more complicated pattern. For fun. I have a couple in mind, but not sure which one I'm picking yet.

My other knitting resolutions consist of a sweater that needs a sleeve, a sleeve that needs the rest of the sweater, a hat that needs decreases, and a cardigan for E. Time for me to get knitting.

Christmas Eve

It's Christmas Eve already, which feels strange. This time last year, I was feeling nauseous and we'd only told a select handful of people that I was pregnant because it was still quite early on. It was actually even earlier than we thought it was at the time--we thought I was around 8 or 9 weeks along when we found out the week before Christmas, and it turns out I was closer to 4 or 5. My body's first response was, "Hey, you're pregnant. Go throw up."

I'm mostly feeling far better this year than I did last year, though my digestive system is a touch moody after all that throwing up and being progressively more squished by a baby over nine months. Too much sugar and I get nauseous, and if I skip a meal or eat later than usual, my stomach launches a vociferous protest. J. and I are getting more sleep right now, in part because we're visiting my family so E. has two grandparents and three uncles who are willing to entertain her, and in part because she's suddenly started sleeping better at night. I don't know how long this will last, but I'm taking advantage while it does.

We've done the big get-together with many people, both family and friends (all on one day), so most of our visit is relaxing, hanging out, and doing stuff around Portland. We spent a while wandering around Saturday Market yesterday, admiring all the pretty breakable things that we should not buy right now. We're doing Powell's on Friday, and I think I'm making the pilgrimage to Mill End and Pendleton Woollen Mills on Saturday. Also on the list is a trip to my favourite tea shop in the world, the Tao of Tea, for a date and to stock up on pu'er, followed by The Hobbit at the Baghdad Theater (pizza, beer, and a movie with Martin Freeman and Benedict Cumberbatch? Sounds like a good day to me).

Today's been pleasantly quiet. We're off to the Christmas Eve service in a couple hours, and dinner's after that. Then I think my mum and I may finish watching David Tennant's Hamlet (we left off during a conversation with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern last night after E. fell asleep) while J. plays board games with my brothers and my dad goes to bed early.

I'm knitting a bit here and there. I have my first Moebius cowl on the needles, and it's just a ribbed pattern, so it's very easy. And fast, since it's worsted weight on 6 mm needles. I just have a few more inches to go before I start the edging. I think I want to make another one in stockinette and then do a garter stitch lace edging. I'll have to play around with that. It might make a good pattern to stick up on Ravelry.

Merry Christmas, everyone. Enjoy the snow, rain, fog, sunshine...whatever it's like where you are.

many things

We're in the last few days before we pick up and head out to visit my parents for Christmas. It's been years since we spent Christmas at their home (years since we've been down to visit at all, actually), and we're very much looking forward to it. We'll be surrounded by people who will be delighted to take a turn entertaining E. so J. and I can get so much needed sleep.

I feel like my brain isn't working so well. E. and I arrived home from the store today, delighted to have finished the Christmas shopping. While I was wrapping presents this evening, I suddenly remembered two gifts I'd forgotten. One was for my grandmother.

J. got his Christmas present, a new computer, yesterday, and is still tinkering with it to get it working. It's not behaving properly and he may need to run back to the store one of these evenings before we take off.

My Christmas present is a trip to the bookstore and fabric store in my parents' town. I'm pretty excited about that. I've been working on sewing in small increments here and there. E.'s Christmas dress is almost done. If it ends up looking wretched once it's all together, we won't bring it, but at least the bodice fits right now. She's been growing by leaps and bounds. She's grown an inch and a half in the last few weeks, so suddenly pants that were far too long actually fit. She's still in the 0-3 months clothing (at 4 months old), but she's out of the newborn-sized clothing, for the most part. I got all teary-eyed when we put the newborn-sized diapers away on Sunday.

I've also been making her a Christmas stocking. I got the pattern here. I've skipped the applique in favour of embroidering her name on it. I've wanted to get better at embroidery, so I tackled stem stitch, split stitch, and French knots. Being geeks, we named our daughter after one of Tolkien's minor characters, so the cuff has her name in Sindarin embroidered on it with stem stitch and French knots, and the stocking leg has her name in English using split stitch. I'll stick up a picture once we have a good quality one.

In the meantime, E.'s finally dozed off. Time to see if she'll let me set her down in the crib so I, too, may sleep.

What's in a Christmas?

I live with the juxtaposition of being both rather cynical about Christmas and a bit of a sap about it. I went through an "I hate Christmas" phase in high school, after Christmas had lost its ineffable zing (I think that was once I really started noticing and disliking the materialism of the holiday), but some of that wonder and fascination has seeped back over the years.

I love the music and films that evoke a sense of wonder and family. There's a great deal of humour in the holiday as well as pathos, which is probably why Love Actually and The Family Stone are among my favourite Christmas films. I also have a fondness for Elf, because my husband and I watched that together one night shortly before we admitted that we were turning into a couple and decided to make that transformation deliberate, rather than accidental. I suppose that means I should also really love Back to the Future, since a Back to the Future marathon sparked the incident which forced us to talk about our relationship, but since we were watching that with a group of friends, and it was just us watching Elf, I tend to have fuzzier feelings about that one. The traditional movies, like White Christmas are great, too, and I usually end up watching those at some point during the holidays.

E. and I were out for a walk the other week while people who work for the city were putting lights in the trees. It hit me that we get to experience Christmas with her from now on. This year she'll probably be fascinated with the lights, and next year, well, I'll have to make sure our tiny tree is out of her reach, since she'll be about 16 months old then and probably into everything. We took her for a walk in the evening so she could see the lights and the sparkly Christmas trees in the shop windows, and she found them captivating. True, sometimes she finds the wall captivating, but I think this time it was the sparklies that were so interesting.

We don't intend to do Santa with E. It wasn't something that my family really did; I don't remember ever believing in Santa Claus, though I did believe in fairies. Neither of us is particularly enthused by the idea of waiting in line at the mall with a bunch of screaming children so we can plop our child onto a stranger's lap and then pay an exorbitant amount for a picture. And I don't want her to have the expectation that Christmas is about the presents, and that if you're good enough, Santa will bring you anything you want.

J. and I like giving and receiving gifts, but we're not particularly gift-oriented. If you're looking at the "love languages" thing that was so popular a few years ago, gift-giving is at the bottom of the list for us. So we don't want Christmas to be all about the presents, fun as they are.

I try to live through the Christmas season focusing on Advent (originally a time of fasting prior to Christmas), to live in expectation, rather than getting caught up in the more hectic aspects of the season. It doesn't always work, but sometimes, I stumble across serenity.

I found myself rather more literally living in expectation last Advent, when we found out E. was on her way a week and a half before Christmas. The Christmas Eve service that year resonated more deeply than usual. This year, with a new little person in our lives, I wonder what Christmas has in store for us?

DIY Christmas and Body Scrub Recipe

Making Christmas gifts: the aftermath

The picture above illustrates the chaos that is my kitchen table. We're supposed to send off the gifts for the in-laws this evening with J's sister, who is spending Christmas with them, and in my usual fashion, I had procrastinated. Partly this is because they can be difficult to buy for: they already have everything they need and most of what they want, and J. and I don't have lots of money. While I'm sure my father-in-law would be thrilled with a newer, fancier telescope (he's an amateur astronomer, among other things), we simply can't afford one. Same with his mum and her harp-playing. I could have tracked down some harp music, but there aren't any really good music shops in our town, so I'd probably have to go on an adventure in downtown Vancouver, and I haven't been in the mood for that sort of thing lately. It's a 2-3 hour bus and Skytrain rain, depending on the destination, and it is cold and wet outdoors (I'm not a wuss, I just don't want pneumonia this winter).

Anyway, searching for Christmas gift ideas led me, as usual, to making things. It's more interesting, and honestly, less stressful than running around the mall. And it can be more affordable. In this case, yes (although since I had to buy ingredients to make face cream and lip balm, I spent a little more than planned, but now I have supplies to choose from for making lotions and lip balms). As you can see from the above picture, I made a lot of lip balm. Lip balm for everyone!

I'd show off pictures of some of the completed things I made, but I already wrapped them (they don't read this blog, to my knowledge, so there'd be no problem with surprises). I made a table runner, turned a piece of an inkle band into a bookmark, made a couple of hair ornaments (ribbon work is way harder than it looks, btw), and then the lip balm and face cream, which will become gifts for more than just my mum-in-law and sisters-in-law. My mum gets some, and so do my cousins and grandmother (probably). This was mostly in the last couple of days, and I even managed to fit in a very long walk around town to get ingredients that has, for some reason, left me hobbling around the apartment like I have arthritis. I'm probably too young for that, since I'm not even thirty yet (and no, I don't have juvenile arthritis or early-onset arthritis or whatever it's called), so I think it's just a pulled muscle somewhere in my thigh that makes it feel like my hip is 80, even though the rest of me isn't. I'm blaming it on the long walk in the cold and wet. There was lots of rain, and it's been hovering around 5 C this week, which isn't so bad. Unless you're soaking wet.

The DIY Christmas gifts haven't stopped there: I have a ukulele strap planned, as well as a couple other random things. We'll see where it goes. I think I prefer this version of Christmas craziness to the rummaging through the bookstore trying to find something that the recipient will enjoy and not be offended by.

Last week I experimented a little with making a sugar scrub, with the thought of making more, also as gifts. I quickly learnt that I prefer salt scrubs. They're less sticky, and made on the same principles.

Brown sugar scrub

This is a vanilla and brown sugar scrub. It works, but I recommend using it in the shower, rather than in the bath, like I did.

Vanilla Brown Sugar Body Scrub
2 cups brown sugar (I used dark brown sugar, but golden brown sugar would also work)
oil (I used olive this time, but would recommend almond or coconut--they're a little more moisturising and I prefer the scents of those to that of olive oil in a body product)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Scoop the brown sugar into a bowl. Drizzle some oil in and mix sugar and oil together with a spoon, adding oil until the scrub reaches the desired consistency. Add the vanilla and mix well. Put in a jar with a decent seal. Use a body scrub, preferably in the shower, for easier clean-up.

You can alter the dimensions of the recipe pretty easily, since it's "add oil until you're happy with it" and then tossing in some vanilla extract. If you had vanilla essential oil or fragrance oil, you could use that and use less of it (if you use fragrance oil, make sure it's one that's okay to use topically).