This is a difficult Christmas season for many. I’ve been searching for inspiration; for some small ways to bring a little Christmas cheer to what is currently looking to be a very quiet, at-home Christmas.
I’ve managed to come up with a few ideas for brightening the season, but I admit it’s been an uphill challenge – my Christmas spirit has been seriously lagging. Let me give you a peek into my too-quiet December here in Alaska.
I finished up, wrapped with love and mailed some home-made gifts for family early last week. Knitting is something I can wile away the hours with any time of year, but it’s been particularly soothing this winter.
Pulling out Christmas wrapping paper, gift bags, cards and tags was a start on my personal “Christmas cheer” project.
I felt good about mailing those packages – on time, no less – until I realized I had no new knitting project ready to work on! Ack!
After an hour or two of near-panic (stuck at home with no knitting project on the needles <shudder>), I dug through my fiber and yarn stash and found the perfect ingredients for a December project. 🎄🎄
The 2-ply red and silver-gray yarn is admittedly store-bought, but it was a great fit for a Christmas scarf for … BAXTER! Yep, it’s got to be the tiniest scarf I’ve knit in years – I added the TV remote in the photo to show the size. It’s going to look so cute in our Christmas Eve photos. 😉
The hand-dyed wool fiber in varied shades of green went right onto my spinning wheel (which is why the tiny red scarf took so long to knit), and along with a single ply of off-white, it spun up quickly into a sweet, lightweight, loosely plied 2-ply yarn just right for another Christmas scarf – this one fo Rhonda!
It’s starting to feel a little bit more like Christmas around here. 🎄⛄️🎄
It sure felt strange doing most of my Christmas shopping online this year, but Jer and I are avoiding in-store shopping. I’ll admit, I was cheered at finding what I hope were just the right gifts for several family members. Fingers crossed.
Shopping for Jerry has been an entirely different challenge. His main gift was easy enough (I sure hope he likes it), but how do you shop for cute stocking-stuffer gifts without going to the stores?
On the bright side, our church has their weekly Advent services online, so I can listen to the lovely Holden service music while I knit. ❤️❤️
The Advent services were also a timely reminder to go online and take care of special Christmas donations to our church, their bakery/bread loaves ministry and our local Food Pantry. They need help more than ever this year.
I’m going to tell you all about another “Christmas spirit” project I’m working on in my next blog. Watch for it!
It’s been a slow-going work-in-progress for the last week or so, and had started to bog down – but it got a big energy boost yesterday when the most adorable little Dachshund Christmas tree ornaments arrived in the mail. Thank you, Santa-Sandy, for thinking of me!
More on this later though … I’ll leave you tonight with my latest attempt at Christmas decorating – I finally got my tree up! 🎄
By the way, the adorable ceramic dachshund guarding the tree arrived in the same box as the ornaments. It was just what I needed – trimming such a huge tree is exhausting work! 😉
De & the Dachsies - Our Rambles 
I love your wee-tree and dachsie! And the scarf – perfect!
LikeLike
LOVE, Love, love your tree… just about the size any of us need. I’m with you trying to find my inner Christmas spirit this year. I know there are reasons, but God hasn’t gone away, the baby Jesus is who we celebrate, but life kinda’ blew my candle out. Christmas alone won’t be fun, but the real reason for Christmas remains. Xoxoxo
LikeLike
My sister, Julie, sent me the little blown-glass Christmas tree a number of years ago, when I admitted to her I just couldn’t dredge up the wherewithal to set up and trim a real tree – knowing I’d have to take it all down and store everything away again in just a few weeks.
Since then, even if I don’t manage much else, I set up my pretty little tree, carefully hang each tiny glass ornament and set it someplace where I can enjoy it. This year, it’s in my bedroom window. 💗
Our stockings are hung downstairs (Jer’s, mine, Baxter’s, Rhonda’s, Damascus & Qiviut’s, and Abby’s). I couldn’t bring myself to leave Abby’s stocking in the box.
We each have our guardian Angels, right? 💗🙏🏼💗 (((hugs)))
Jerry hung a string of lights around the sliding glass door in the living room, and I set out my favorite snowman collectibles. I think, other than my little “project” upstairs (see my next blog post), that’s going to be it for this year.
LikeLike
We see from your blog that you are OK over there; glad all is well with you, Jer and kids. Nina called you a few days ago and left voicemail. She was asking for input on local physicians you might know or know about. It would be considerate if you would give her a call-back. 354-7735
Jane
LikeLike