Today is the last day at school before Christmas break, and class 2B treated us to Christmas carols.

One can have too many paracord bracelets, and I think I already do, but whatever. This one is l33t green!

As part of the advent calendar, we made paracord bracelets.

Ingrid has had “home skills” at school this year, every other Monday. They’ve cooked and baked and talked about environmentally conscious buying etc.

None of the baking and cooking skills were new for Ingrid, but it seems that going through them at school made Ingrid more confident about them. Or perhaps it was the simplicity of having that one cookie recipe to choose from, that they used at school. (Ingrid likes cooking her favourite recipes over and over again.) In any case, she’s now baked those cookies several times, both to eat and to give away.

This Lego motor piece is Adrian’s current favourite. He attaches various Lego pieces to the rotary end and makes them spin, and experiments. It turns out that heavy pieces move more slowly; small pieces move fast and make a different noise. When the motor is held upright, it takes a bit of time before a heavy “propeller” lifts into a horizontal position.

An ensemble of seven women, dressed in various tones of red and pink, perform a seamless new circus/dance/song show.

The theme is feminism, very obviously, and it permeates everything from costumes to song lyrics. Cirkus Cirkör are never subtle about their messages. But unlike some previous shows, I thought this one didn’t rub its message in my face too strongly.

Organic, flowing movements, with circus numbers blending into dance and vice versa. There is rarely a “my number” and “your number” – some performers are more in focus during a particular number but others support, surround, carry, or push. There is a strong sense of togetherness. Beautiful, lyrical and physical.

Memorable fragments: An artist hanging by her hair, spinning, counterbalanced by a pile of plate armour. An artist in the centre, circled and besieged by two others who sing at the same time in different languages. An artist in a tangle of black swathes of fabric that the others weave into a plait. Three artists on two rope trapezes, close together, shifting and moving snake-like over each other.

(Not my photos.)

This is my pillow. It looks totally shapeless and unfluffy, doesn’t it? And it is, and that’s a good thing. I’ve come to realize that soft down-filled pillows may seem comfy but aren’t actually comfortable for sleeping – for me at least. (And let’s not even mention pillows with polyester fill.)

Back in 2010 when we were in Beijing, we bought silk pillows. The pillows were filled with silk fibre, not that the outer casing was made of silk fabric. They were quite flat and firm and served us well for many years, but they did finally wear out.

When I was looking for a replacement earlier this year, I somehow stumbled upon buckwheat pillows. That sounded weird enough to be worth a try. The first few nights, the buckwheat pillow felt as weird as it sounded. It was noisy, for one thing – the buckwheat hulls rustle when I move around. And they smell of buckwheat, so it was like sleeping with a bowl of buckwheat porridge next to my bed. But I guess my brain learned to filter out the sound, and the smell disappeared with time, and now I rarely notice them. And the pillow is wonderfully comfortable.

My pillow is the complete opposite of soft. I think it might actually hurt to punch it, though I haven’t tried. But it’s wonderfully supportive and adjustable and I can shape it to fit my head exactly. Sleeping on my side? Bunch it up. Sleeping on my back? Wriggle a bit and make the perfect indentation in it. When I lift my head, the pillow stays, ready to support me again.

Evening skating at Spånga IP. The small rink appeared more or less unmaintained and was covered with a layer of snow. The large one, as usual, is only open to the general public after 18:00.

Like most years, the kids are drowning in an overload of advent calendars. TV, radio, Kalle Anka, hand-drawn by Ingrid for Adrian, and my gift calendar. Each one is fun but together they are too much, and we can’t keep up. It’s the 14th today, and this curl of paper in the 10th pocket means that that day’s gift is still waiting for them.

Some of the walls at our office have been painted with whiteboard paint. This one displays a mixture of content from design discussions and visiting kids.