December is here

It is Monday, it is December, and it feels like things are starting to fall into place (somewhat).

The Christmas stocking has about half the backstitching done now, and I am hoping to finish by the end of the week. It won't be made up for this christmas though, I'm planning to just pin it to a pillowcase. I have started knitting myself a new hat, which I would like to finish before it is suddenly summer again.

We have a stack of Christmas cards to write in and post, with any luck we haven't missed the Christmas mailing dates already. Had a bit of a glitch in failing to find somewhere to print some photos I was aiming to send - apparently people don't print photos here or something? Yesterday I hunted for the right spices for the Christmas baking, and ended up with 'gingerbread spice', so it will be interesting to see how that turns out. Next step will be finding time to actually do the baking...

I think we're doing pretty well on the gift shopping front too - the boys are mostly sorted, just need to order a drink bottle for the changeling (Life Factory glass bottle, he loves his brother's one, and it will be better for long plane trips than his tiny sippy cup). We haven't got everything we'd like to find for people back home, but we either know what we're looking for and where to get it, or have no idea. There will be Christmas markets to explore throughout the month anyway. I would also like to buy some tree ornaments to bring back - until now we've had a chipmunk on top of the tree (I don't want a star or angel), but here the thing to have is apparently a spike. (What else could it be, in this city of spiky spikiness?)

The weather forecast keeps threatening snow in a week, which never quite happens. I hope we'll see some at some point during the month.