tis the season

Our Christmas cards are ordered, gifts purchased (mostly), house decorated (as good as it's gonna be), and the stockings are hung by the chimney with care! Including a new one for Colin this year!

I ordered yarn (Knit Picks Wool of the Andes in colorways cloud and forest heather), designed the colorwork charts, and started knitting in September. Knitting took about a week and a half. I blocked it by misting it with a spray bottle and then holding the iron over it (without touching) and pressing the "steam" button. For the lining, I traced the stocking onto some off-white cotton fabric, extending the top by about 1". Then I cut out the shape, sewed and serged around the edges, and hemmed the top. I stitched the loop to the lining and then hand sewed the lining to the inside of the knit stocking. More details on my Ravelry page.

I'm glad I wasn't rushing to finish this at the beginning of December, since we usually have lots of other Christmas activities as soon as Thanksgiving is finished. In fact, we’ve been able to maintain several of our regular holiday traditions, including our annual trip to see the Christmas lights at the zoo. I reserved a time at 4:30 on a Thursday early in December, so the zoo was pretty empty when we arrived. Usually we approach the zoo from side streets and park a mile away to avoid the gridlocked parking lot. This year, we drove straight into the lot and parked in the front row. (It was pretty great, actually.) As evening fell, more people arrived, but it was still less crowded than past years.

We waited a few minutes to see (socially distanced, outdoor) Santa. Mae was completely star-struck. This kid will immediately strike up a conversation with any adult in shouting distance, but in front of Santa she was speechless and stuck clinging to the back of my leg. I finally convinced her to tell Santa what she wants for Christmas (an American Girl doll). Then he sent her a candy cane through his candy chute.

Mae also wrote a letter to Santa. She didn’t have too many Christmas gift ideas other than a doll, but does want some helmets for her Playmobil kids since one ended up in plastic head bandages from the doctors office set after falling off his bike. The letter reads:

DEAR SAntA!
AmERiCAn GiRL DOLL
COLORinG BOOKS
SAntA - i HAVE BEEN A
VErY GOOD GirL!
PLAYmOBiL HELmEtS!
LOVE! MAE!

(We're still working on writing the letter "S")

We dropped our letter in this special Santa mailbox that appeared along with a decorated candy forest trail near our house.

Mae and I built also a cute little gingerbread house. It was a multi-day process of making dough, baking the gingerbread, assembling the pieces, and then finally decorating. And, in a very fitting end to a 2020 gingerbread house, it collapsed into pieces an hour later. I was sad (“We worked so hard on it!”) but Mae was excited (“Can we eat it now??”) I must admit, it’s pretty tasty. Pairs nicely with tea from the tea advent calendar I treated myself to this year.

Only 10 more days until Christmas!