Dueling hats…
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sounds like such fun!
@AntBee I giggled at your post about deciding to make things in the final few weeks!
and @Abbeeroad , the hats are looking great! You should be finished in plenty of time~
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Your needles are really pretty and your beginning work with them looks so festive.
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Thank you!
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I’m still a bit tired after norovirus wiped me out last week, but there’s lots of crafting to be done and Mr. Imma is away.
I’m hoping to finish a few pieces of stichting, I want to knit a pair of wristwarmers, I need to sew a few things. Oh and I have tonight and tomorrow morning 
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Tree is up. It’s bigger than we usually get but with a big empty space in the middle of the trunk, lol.
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I bought some cotton yarn (4 weight) & worsted 4 weight yarn and a 3.25 mm crochet hook. I couldn’t find 3mm for the crocheted baubles. I hope that’s okay and won’t make the stitches too big. If it does, I’ll 100% have to stuff them rather than wrap around an existing ornament. I started with hardly any ornaments and planned to craft some up because of that… and then was gifted full ornament sets from 3 different people. Now I have a lot. lol
I may be crochet-wrapping ornament sets for my 2023 gift list.
Several people on my typical gift list are opting out of their traditional holiday trees this year as it has been a rather rough year for them (divorce… cancer… etc.) so I’m not sure if I should even plan for them having future trees. I can still make them for those that will certainly have trees.
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isn’t that always how it goes! 
I haven’t managed to get started on any of my Christmas plans yet - still unpacking and organising. At least I can walk through the garage without having to scale a small mountain of packing boxes …
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We “attempted” to make gingerbread houses and an Oreo train. HA. I remembered somewhere in this Christmas Craftalong that the trick is to hot glue while constructing, but some children wanted to eat the constructions so we tried without glue. Utter failure. Do not recommend; ever. lol At least not from a kit. One simple triangular house made it into an actual gingerbread house while the rest became decorated as cookies. Simple. I’m counting #2 on my list as completed because we tried. We won’t build them again. No one liked fighting the sliding house pieces. Cookie decorating was a win though.
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Tomorrow, December 5, is when we celebrate St Nick in my country! In NL the custom is that gifts come from him and not from Santa. Some families also give eachother some gifts at Christmas but usually no one pretends they actually come from Santa. The gifts from St Nick come in a large big burlap sack and they are often left at the doorstep for the family to find. Gift giving happens mostly at home in the evenings, it’s not a day off. I happen to have a hospital appointment in the city where my mum lives. She’s working from home tomorrow, so I’m wrapping up some gifts in a burlap sack right now, and tomorrow I’ll leave them on her doorstep, bang the door & run away! If she’s away from home I’ll sneak into her house, put the bag in the middle of the room and leave.
I’m not really a big fan of St Nick, I didn’t enjoy it growing up so there are no nostalgic memories attached to it, but I really love this part of the tradition. Probably my favourite one ever is maybe 15 years ago when I managed to get a wrapped gift with her name on it inside my grandma’s purse, and she didn’t know even find out I was at that event at all until I explained how I did it.
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That is a fun memory!
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@Dragon - Aw! We make a gingerbread house from a kit every year…without glue. We even held a contest at my son’s elementary school a few years ago (pre-COVID of course), and while there were a few collapsing houses, everyone got theirs to stand at least through the judging. I’m not sure what the trick is…not too much (or too little) icing, kneading the icing just the right amount, waiting until the walls set before adding the roof pieces…all might help a little. 
Don’t give up! It’s a fun tradition. How old are the (your?) kiddos?
@Immaculata - love the story of the gift in your grandma’s purse!! Good luck dropping off gifts to your mom tomorrow. It’s so funny…We never did Santa with my son, but my daughters INSIST that he’s real, lol. I just follow their lead.
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Woo, you could not safely leave anything on a porch here, day or night. We were out doing yard work last weekend when a guy walking a dog went right up onto our neighbour’s porch & took an amazon box. Then he walked past us & took another package from the neighbour on the other side! Bold porch pirate.
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what?! That’s nuts!
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Nothing is safe outside or even on your porch and you gotta lock your car. People are desperate.
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That’s really sad. We have a neighborhood watch vigilante across the street…although she is annoying at times, she keeps everyone informed of what is going on and she does know every car that does not “belong”…we all also have security cameras, but they are really not necessary. This is not really a walking neighborhood (no sidewalks)…the people who are walking are neighbors.
One of our new neighbors had a brand new couch delivered. They left it in front of his garage wrapped in clear plastic. It was there for at least four days. I have heard of some neighbor hoods closer to town having packages stolen. People are more desperate this time of year for sure.
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I got two ornaments done using the tutorial @magpie provided…didn’t even make a dent in my stash of red, green and white cotton yarn…lol…
I did use up two larger styrofoam balls, so that was good! I think I will use the smaller balls to make baubles to hang all year round using the other colors I have. These are quite addicting to make indeed!
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Oh that’s awful 
I can imagine people might not feel safe in their own homes when burglars are that bold. Even if they’re just looking for stuff that easy to sell, the idea of a stranger walking into your home to steal your stuff is pretty scary.
My mum doesn’t have a porch, so the gifts are exposed to the elements. I’m going to watch from the corner to see if she’s opening the door, if she’s not home I’ll put them inside. But the weather is the biggest risk here, I can’t imagine someone walking into her garden to steal a bag of wrapped up gifts.
Thankfully my own neighbourhood is also pretty safe. It doesn’t have a reputation for being a “safe” neighbourhood, and I know of at least two families who make their income in an illegal way. They just make sure to not commit their own crimes in this neighbourhood. Mr Imma often doesn’t want to ride his bike into the garden at night (the alley behind our houses is very dark and has loose pavers) but no one is stealing it. We try to stay out of certain neighbours’ business, I don’t want to know about it or get involved, but we all accept parcels for each other and we help each other shovel when it snows. That’s all I want for neighbours.
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@Abbeeroad they are 3, (almost 5), 7, 11, and 11. It’s just the impatience regarding the icing “glue” to set and the sugar rush didn’t help the patience either. They just wanted to decorate the things and a few wanted to eat them so I opted to skip hotglue; which would have set fast for them to decorate an actual structure. It’s fine though, they were happy decorating cookies.
@Immaculata I like your tradition. What a wonderful surprise that will be for your mother.
@AIMR Your ornaments turned out great! I need to start mine soon. Still haven’t put our tree up yet either. Intended to today, but I don’t think we’ll be doing that with my son’s little birthday dinner (party).
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