Seasonal delights

1. Practicing choir music for 2 hours while standing. It’s a better cardio workout than I’d get at the gym, and I whine about it a lot less. (2 hours of stop and start singing of 11+ pieces of music, with reminders for correct breathing, tone, punctuation, and for g-sakes don’t hit the other people in front of you with your sheet music by mistake.)
2. All the free light displays that are up right now. I’m fine enjoying other people lighting their houses, decorating their mall entranceways like palaces from the Nutcracker, and putting wacky light displays on light poles that seem to be town-specific displays. (Yes, I understand hanging flags from light poles, or trees on light poles, etc. But hanging lights on lights seems recursive to me. Delightful, but recursive.)
3. Knitting presents (and then deciding to rip said knitting and just get ‘em a book). At this stage in the season, there really aren’t that many commitments.
4. Window shopping, by looking in department store windows (harder to do these days, but there still are some stores that have good displays).
5. Looking for the perfect card to send overseas to friends.
6. Coffee made with nutmeg, hot cider with cinammon, or cocoa made with mint.
7. Listening to BBC’s Evensong.
8. Going through cookbooks to see which cookies I have time to make for people on my list. (Babka? Pie?)
9. Wearing wool socks as often as possible.
10. Contemplate candlelit meals at the kitchen table.

So, that’s my small toe into that big tidal wave known as Christmas preparation. If anyone from Australia is reading this, hot drinks and warm socks are probably the last thing wanted right now.  How do you enjoy the beginning of the season? I, personally, am hoping to avoid Santa at the mall and bad traffic.

DreamSwatch finished

DreamSwatch finished

Originally uploaded by rjknits

This was a very satisfying project. The yarn was a great gift from a friend, and it ended up working well with the pattern.

The person I gave it to (late holiday gift) just couldn’t figure out how I knit this, because it ends up looking woven, knit AND macrame’d all at the same time. Of course, I didn’t tell her that the way I knit it was by listening to Dr. Who Christmas specials on BBC Radio.

Definitely thinking about using the pattern from the swatch for a sweater, possibly on the sleeves or in the center of a v-neck.

Finishing Up a DreamSwatch

Finally the end is in sight. This project, after logging in hours with me listening to BBC7 Listen Again broadcasts, is done. Stats: 38″ long and 3 1/2 inches wide. Made from Crystal Palace Yarns Panda Cotton Print in color 0435 Blueberry-Grape. The stitch on this one was lots of fun.

Of course, I’m having trouble photographing this one without natural light. So here it is with a blue background in an attempt to show the color. Look — two ends are in sight.

It may be a small project, but finishing this lets me focus on finishing other projects. And then start working on some of the projects that have been on hold. Anyone who’s seen my Ravelry queue knows it’s a long one.

Kind of Recursive

But a huge undertaking nonetheless…..

There’s a Christmas Goat that gets put up every year in Gävle, Sweden (sorry for the lack of umlauts over the “a” in Gavle, I haven’t found WordPress’s settings for foreign languages).* This has been going on since 1966, when:

On 2 December the 13-metre (42,6 feet) tall, 7-metre long, 3 tonne goat stood on the square. At the stroke of midnight on New Year’s Eve, the goat went up in smoke. The perpetrator was found and charged with vandalism.

The Gävle Goat has been burned down 22 times since then.

Here is a link to the film of the goat under construction: Goat film.

I’m not sure if putting a giant stack of hay in the middle of town and decorating it with lights doesn’t invite people to see what would happen to it when it went up ablaze. But hearing about this makes me curious about what the rest of the region is like, and whether the town has a plan for what to do if no one burns the thing down for them.  Burning Man is a young (controlled) tradition compared to this.

*Thanks, Naomi. You learn something new every day.

The Present Really Is Presence

Last week, I didn’t finish the deadline driven knitting I was working on for the wrap party. However, I did get two little ornaments finished, wrapped, and under the tree. In the large scale of things, not a huge accomplishment.

For the holidays, I was given the opportunity to be present in the homes of my family and the Gardener’s family. In retrospect, being in the presence of loved ones is the best present of all. No matter how irritating it is to be suddenly treated like you’re 3 years old and you’re also an expert on computers, it’s still great to be able to pull up a seat at the family table. Not everyone has that opportunity, or wants it. We did lots of mileage on the eastern seaboard of the States to celebrate Christmas. Maybe next year it’ll be at our house?

Hope everyone had a great Christmas. If you’re getting ready for 3 Kings day, you celebrate Christmas on the 7th of January, or you are still celebrating Kwanzaa and Hanukkah, have fun!

Christmas and Hanukkah Wishes

Oh Tannenbaum

To everyone who reads this: I hope your holidays are happy, festive, healthy, and safe.

I’m checking my list and getting ready for annual Christmastime events. This will probably be the start of blog silence for a bit. You can’t blog while you’re eating at your parent’s dinner table (at least not politely).  If we follow last year’s pattern — there will be Christmas Eve services, possible mad dashes into gift shops, and hoped-for meetings with far-flung relatives who have all gathered to effectively transmit colds across the eastern seaboard.

Drama is added to the season by friends inconvenienced by storms in Oregon (one can only hope they get to safely continue their travels). I also know people in the Northeast who are still without power…hopefully they get service started again soon.

Here’s hoping that everyone gets where they’re supposed to be. That the lights of the menorah stir feelings of hope. And that everyone who is celebrating Christmas gets to spend some time thinking about the phrase, “All is calm, all is bright…” in between all the hectic minutes leading up to 6 AM (or 5 AM if the children are like those I know) on Christmas day.

The construction crew down the block is listening to “All I Want for Christmas (is You)” and “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” and other music that sounds tinny from this distance. (I kind of wish they’d do Adam Sandler’s song instead.)

PS: If you’re looking for some crafty ideas for wrapping gifts — people who sew enjoy getting some extra fabric wrapped around their presents; brown paper bags cut up and put “wrong side” out, with stamped designs on the outside can be festive; and if you have used wrapping paper, it can be used again.

Wrapping Things Up

Blurry is about the best I can do today.

I’m still trying to get the last of the presents collected, then I need to wrap said presents and get some of them on the road.

This blurry picture is my latest craft-in process: little felt ornaments to give away. We’ll see how many of the 6-ornament kit I get applique’d and beaded. Note: the kit is a discontinued Bucilla one that I bought on sale a year or so ago. If you want to give felt applique a try, this is kind of a cost-effective way to go — saving on money by buying a kit in the off-season and saving on sanity by giving yourself a year to play with cutting and beading these things. The knitting I was doing has been put away because I’m tired of being tempted to blow my nose on projects. These little felt babies are perfectly safe — they’re pretty easy to throw down when I need to grab a tissue. Best of all, it looks like I can wash and dry them in time for wrapping on Christmas Eve.

What do you want for the holidays? A pleasant flight home to visit family? A break from work? Not dreading January’s bills?

I think all I want for Christmas is to NOT be sick. Just one year where only Rudolph has the red nose, ‘kay?

Shopping for Cooks

… or people who love to bake. No, I’m not saying go out and buy yourself a chef, attractive though that may sound. But if you know someone whose hobby* is baking bread, icing cakes, or making blue ribbon chili, you might be able to find something they want and need on this list:

• Measuring cups, cookie cutters, and a cookbook for children might be a hit with the ‘tween or teen set. (The ‘tween book is a link to an article about Betty Crocker’s Cook Book for Boys and Girls, a cookbook I had as a kid.)
• If you’re on a budget, find 12 family recipes, and copy them over for a younger member of the family, or perhaps for your new son or daughter-in-law. Include nonperishable ingredients for one of the recipes. (I once received a ham strata recipe, with one of the ingredients, a canned ham, packed in a casserole dish. It was perfect on New Year’s morning.)
• Think grilling. In southern areas of the U.S. and in other areas of the world, December is the perfect time to stick things on the coals. Tools–like a new meat thermometer, specialty racks for grilling fish, new tongs and cleaning brush–might be appreciated, even if it’s months before grilling season.
• Check out other cultures for cookbooks. There are beautiful cookbooks out there for Thai, Japanese, Indian, Southwest Native American, Italian, vegetarian, and many other types of cuisines. If there’s a gap on a cookbook shelf, it might be time to spice the library up with new cultures and recipes.
• Funny (and useful) presents include measuring cups in fun colors, fanciful oven gloves, exotic tiles for hot plates, and aprons that express someone’s individuality.
• If they’re taking lessons in cake decorating, find a fancy cake pedestal and server for them to use. If they’re on a bread baking kick, specialty pans for baguettes or corn muffins might be a hit.
• If you know someone collects something like carnival glass or Royal Doulton teacups, hit the thrift stores to see if you can’t make a find.

Have fun in the cooking shops. And some advice, garnered after an unfruitful shopping expedition — if you’re running a fever and shopping at the same time, just go home. Standing in the music aisles listening to the clash of Metallica and “The Little Drummer Boy” while looking at CDs of opera was disorienting, to say the least.

If you have other ideas of things that might please the person who relaxes in the kitchen, comment away! I’m still staring blankly at store shelves, trying to suss out my next purchases.

*Note I’m saying hobby here. There are some people who bake all the time, are always in the kitchen scrubbing up, or who work in a kitchen. They might like something else that’s less like work, you know? If cooking is like ironing for some people, don’t give ‘em a reason to scowl, and select something else. But if you shop for those who are eager to learn new cooking tricks, who seem to read cookbooks like they’re novels, who confess they’ve always wanted to know how to bake bread… get thee to a store like Fantes, where I used to daydream for hours, or your local kitchen wares shop.

Gifts for Artists and Musicians

One of the things that get cut in a bad economy are the Arts — schools cut art and music classes rather than sports. One way to counteract this economic Grinch effect is to provide kids and kids at heart with the tools they need to practice their craft of choice. Luckily, it doesn’t have to break the bank.

• If there’s a kid in your life who loves trombone, clarinet, violin, and you know the family can’t afford lessons, see if you can get other family members to help you cover the cost — maybe split it up so each person covers one day’s lesson.
• Match sheet music to the musical taste of budding performers — sheet music from Wicked or Pirates of the Caribbean may fill a young musician with joy.
• Paintbrushes, sheets of disposable palette paper, and refills of paint colors that get used up quickly (for instance, titanium white) are welcome additions to any painter’s studio. Ditto for pastels, kneaded rubber erasers, and tortillions for other artists.
• If they’re learning to draw, provide them with art pencils, colored pencils, and paper.
• Little artists need refills of paper for painting easels, child safe paints, inexpensive brushes, glitter glue, crayons, and modeling clay.
• Teens might enjoy a book on drawing cartoons and caricatures, along with some of the tools mentioned in the book.

And, of course, give the gift that’s free — encouragement. If your niece or nephew want to play their violin, drum, or clarinet after dinner on Christmas Day, sit and really listen. If they want to show you their latest artworks, smile and look for things you can identify and talk about (like color choice, if the art is abstract). Remember — even really great performers like Wynton Marsalis, Yo-Yo Ma, and Marian Anderson and famous artists like Mary Cassatt probably needed encouragement when they were young.

Two More Gifts

… and I can mail out packages.

One of the great things about my friends and family is they love books. An easy trip to a bookstore with a coffee shop attached; I get to look at some of the current books and music that are out; and the wrapping is a snap.

If you’re shopping for books, here are a few ideas (depending on the personalities of recipients, of course):

• For the kids: Bats at the Library — it’s a lovely, illustrated, imaginative book that’s a wee bit meta (see how many characters from other books you can identify in each picture). Check it out at your library, and see if it would work for a boy or girl (or grownup) you know. Another great book is Arabel’s Raven for preschoolers.
• For the preteens: Mistress Masham’s Repose. I loved this book when I was a preteen. Another book by TH White, The Goshawk, is good too.  I remember The House With a Clock in its Walls as one of the books that gave me fits when I was 11, but might be just the cup of tea of a brave preteen boy or girl. If you want adventure with fewer sleepless nights, try Aiken’s Midnight Is a Place.
• More for preteens: All of a Kind Family, by Sydney Taylor, and The Saturdays, by Elizabeth Enright. The first is about an immigrant family living on the Upper East side in NYC in 1912 (please ignore the phrase “heart-warming story”… as a kid I was fascinated about the different time period). The second is about a family of kids who pool their money each week so one person can go do something they’ve always dreamed about.
• Teens have the Twilight books, but there are also classics like Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye (yes, I cried while reading the last page in a library),  A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith (more hankies), and Gothic classics — Edgar Allan Poe’s short stories, including Fall of the House of Usher, Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre or Villette, and Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey (which is a spoof of the genre).
• Adults might appreciate books filled with: Christmas carols, recipes, diy crafts (if you know a craft they enjoy), stories about nature, or vacation ideas.

Note: when I was a student, I was able to find lots of out of print books that I knew people would like at a second-hand store. Sometimes an older book is better because it’s a collector’s item or has illustrations the recipient would remember.

Hoping your season is jolly, and you manage to survive with your spirits intact.