And A Good Time Was Had By All

How and why is tomorrow the twelfth day of Christmas? Why does it have to go so quickly? Yes, I ask myself this every year, but I never have a good answer, because the answer that time goes on is just unsatisfactory in this case. 

But we've had a good time this Christmastime.

As expected, Santa came and brought the kitties a lot of good stuff!

Milo in particular was *very* excited.

It was hard to convince him to wait for the others.

One of the packages had catnip toys with silverine in them, which apparently made them even more irresistable than if they had only had catnip. Milo got things started, but Alfie helped out, and so soon the package was nearly unwrapped.

Once everything was opened, it was time to chill for a while. 

Alfie was particularly interested in one of the packages I opened that had a LOT of ribbon on it!

Esme split her time between watching us open things and looking at the squirrel on the chair right outside the window into the garden (if you look over her right shoulder, you can see the squirrel's butt).

Christmas Day was lovely, and all of us had a good time. We just enjoyed being together, and had treats, listened to music, and then later in the day headed upstairs to watch a couple of holiday shows we had recorded.

We have been enjoying the season so much, just being able to be together, but also having nothing really demanding to fill our time. We had a very quiet New Year's Eve and New Year's Day, and if you ignore certain activities of certain people who think they are going to rule the world, you could say it was all perfect.

Two more wonderful things: on both Tuesdays before Christmas and before New Year's, there was only one kitty left to be adopted where I volunteer. They were each especially sweet, and I was sincerely hoping that they wouldnt have to spend Christmas Day and New Year's Day alone. Well, they each got adopted - one on Christmas Eve by a woman who stopped by when I was there on Tuesday and was in love with the one kitty left - and one on New Year's Eve - adopted by another volunteer, who had a cat who had died over the summer, and didn't want her other cat to keep being lonely. I have to tell you, those two adoptions just made my holiday season! And it also seemed like a wonderful way to end the year. 

I sincerely hope that your holiday season contained even just a few moments of joy and happiness. The world is on fire, so it's more important than ever to find good things wherever and whenever we can.

Happy New Year 2026

Merry Christmas From Our House to Yours

I Could Just Say That I Let The Cats Do It ...

For years, when both of us worked in academic settings, we used to go home and visit our families over Christmas. It was a lot of fun, and there are a lot of things to miss about it. Since my sister in WV is neither a cook nor a baker, we always would make sure that we had plenty of Christmas cookies baked, so that we could have some at home ourselves, but also take several large boxes worth with us to share. We would make hundreds of cookies of various kinds, and usually by about the second day we were home, everything was gone! 😃

Even though I continued to work in academia for a while, The Tim got laid off from his job and started working retail. Which meant that there were no more trips home at Christmastime, because working on both Christmas Eve and the day after Christmas meant it wasn't worth it to make the trip for what would basically be part of Christmas Day. 

Needless to say, it also meant that we didn't do nearly as much baking. With just the two of us, we didn't need several different kinds of cookies, and since our schedules were not the same, we had little time to work on them together, which for us, was part of the fun.

Anyway, this year I have been watching several Vlogmas episodes of some of my fave knitting podcasts. And more then one of the people in the vlogs have been making cut out sugar cookies and then decorating them. For whatever reason, this year I decided that I would love some cut out sugar cookies to decorate. But there were two things to consider: 1) The Tim, who is much better at that kind of thing than I am, is not overly interested in that type of cookie, and 2) most recipes seem to make several dozen. 

The other day, I decided to Google "small batch sugar cookies" and lo and behold, I found a recipe for only one dozen cookies!  This particular recipe allowed for you to mix the ingredients, give them a short visit to the freezer, and then cut them out and bake them all that same day. I followed the reeipe, but put the dough in the fridge overnight because I know that's how a lot of recipes for larger batches work, and also, I wasn't planning on baking them until the next day. 

So last Thursday, after finishing some cleaning projects, I dug out a few small cookie cutters from our collection and gave it a try. I had a good time rolling out the dough and cutting out the shapes, and in a case of truth in advertising, I did get one dozen cookies out of the recipe! (One fell apart when I took them off the cookie tray, so I ate that one in the interest of quality control.)

Then once they were cooled, I made the icing, adding in a bit of cream cheese because regular sugar icing doesn't really thrill me. I had so much fun, icing and decorating the little shapes! 

The results:

I decided that this is a case of my adult self baking the cookies, and my 4-year-old self decorating them. Because really, this is what I ended up with, in spite of actually trying to get them to look nicer. 😂

In any case, I love them, and based on the one that I tried before any decorating took place, they are pretty tasty too! So now I have my cut out Christmas sugar cookies, and in an amount that is reasonable for us. 

The Tim thinks they are hilarious (he's probably just jealous), and we decided that we could always just tell people that I baked them, and let the cats decorate them, LOL! But then I pointed out that I don't think that would be a good idea, because frankly, they would probably do a better job ...

Also, as we all know, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I wanted cut out and decorated sugar cookies, and now I have them. What's not to enjoy??

*****

This weekend was the finale of cleaning the house for us. I finished with the actual cleaning last week, but The Tim did the vacuuming and cleaned the kitchen (two things he claims he does better - fine with me!), and the house is now set. Other than that, we had no specific plans, but I did make some other treats, finished a book, and picked up the stitches for the final sleeve of my cardigan, so it was a busy time around here. The Tim said he finished all of his gift wrapping, so he got some things done as well besides cleaning. 

The cats rested. Because, well, they are cats!

I'm gonna work on the wrapping I have today, and have a couple of other small things to do - a quick trip to the market and to CVS, but otherwise all of the major stuff is done. We're about as ready as we can be!

FO Post: The Only Knit Gift This Year

You may or may not remember that The Tim told me last year that he didn't need any more knit socks at the moment, so not to make any for him.

During the course of doing laundry, I noticed that a pair of socks I made for him years ago, that he wears as slippers around the house, had several big holes in them. He usually wears another pair of socks under them, so either he didn't notice, or figured it didn't matter (or - I'll take both for $100, Alex). 

Well, that just seems ridiculous to me, so I decided that I would knit him a new pair, and if I got them finished in time for Christmas, fine, but I wasn't gonna hurry. Of course, since they are knit from worsted weight yarn, they knit up really quickly. and I finished the second sock this past Monday, even after taking a long break in between the two so that I could wrap and mail gifts to people out of town. 

So here they are! I am not known for my color management, so you really can't see some of the one-row colors in here, other than the black which shows up. But I really like the way they turned out, and it was fun to have a knit gift for him. 😀

Project: Replacement Social Security Number Socks

Pattern: Vanilla sock pattern using worsted weight yarns

Needles: US size 5/3.75 mm

Yarns: All are scraps of Plymouth Encore worsted yarns from several other projects. I'm a big fan of Encore, because it has a little bit of wool in it, but the acrylic means that it can go in the washer and the dryer with no issues. 

Notes: The pattern is one I came across a long time ago - does anyone remember the Knitlist? I mean, that's waaaaayyy back! Anyway, someone posted it there, and since it's not, as far as I know, the specific property of any designer, I can share it here.

Basically, the way it works is that you take your Social Security number, and assign a yarn to each number - you can either say that there are 9 different colors, or assign yarns to a number and use only that color throughout, which is what I did. For zeroes, you can either do a purl row, or eyelets, or assign a color. 

Now, before you get all worked up about identity theft, someone would have to be very very close to your foot and sock, and would need to know how to count knitted rows, in order to figure out your SS#. It seems to me, that if someone seems that interested in your foot for that long, and you either don't notice or don't think it's the weirdest behavior this side of the Mississippi, then that's on you.

His previous pair (with all the holes) was made up of brighter colors, whereas this one is more subdued. But I like the way this one looks. And except where I didn't realize that colors were not distinctive enough to show up unless you were *very* close, I like the way they all complement each other. The heel and the toe are in black yarn, because that is what I had the most of as a leftover. 

So there you go - now you even know how to make your own if you like. I think they are really fun, but of course, the options are limited, since if you say to someone "Could you tell me your Social Security number for a knitting project," there is a good chance it won't end well. 

I do have to say that after knitting the first pair, it was a huge help to me whenever I would need to know The Tim's SS# for some form or another and he wasn't around. 😄

The only other knitting project I would like to finish before the end of the year is my cardigan. All it needs is the second sleeve, and the buttons, so I think I can get it done. I put it aside at the beginning of December for the aforementioned wrapping and sending of gifts (which have all been received now, yay!). It took me about two weeks to do the first sleeve, which was in fits and starts, so I think I can get it all done. I'm not gonna drive myself nuts about it, but it would be fun to have such a great finish to my knitting year.

What about you? Have you knit any gifts? Anything you hope to finish before 2025 heads out?