We have a New Year’s tradition of watching fireworks from the flat roof of the newer half of our house. Twenty minutes before midnight it’s time to bring out the big ladder and then we take turns to climb up to the roof.

The roof is wide and flat – there’s plenty of space to walk around to get good views in all directions, without ever having to worry about getting too close to the edge.

There’s always plenty of fireworks to look at, near and far. Usually quite a lot quite near, even.

For the first time ever, Ingrid opted to go celebrate New Year’s Eve with her friends. Growing up! So we had to wish her a happy new year by text.

Ingrid wished and got a baking book for Christmas, about bread and buns and brunch. We’re all about to appreciate the results. She’s making mud cake buns – rolled buns with a mud cake filling.

My brother came for a Christmas visit.

We played board games (Robo Rally),

… made pasta together,

… and crafted mince pies.

Christmas Day may be behind us, but it’s still Christmas, and mince pies are a must-have.

All of a sudden, the colours in the cardigan sleeve I’m knitting are pooling together. Almost an inevitability, really, given how mathematics and variegated yarns work. The sleeve slowly gets narrower and narrower, so at some point the width is going to match up with the periodicity of the dye on the hank of yarn.

I don’t like it, so I’ll be ripping this up and doing something about it. Breaking it up with a second piece of the same yarn, in the other direction so the colours don’t just line up again.

I like winding yarn by hand. I like the feel of it, and the look of the ball. Skeins and cakes are all good, but a good old traditional ball is still… nicer.

Crunchy snow, crisp air, dark sky. Very wintery.

Lazy day today.

This corner of the sofa, with the plush cushion and the woolly blanket, is both Ingrid’s and Adrian’s favourite. And Nysse’s as well, actually. Eric and I prefer the firmer parts of the sofa. Or really, in Eric’s case, the even firmer sofa in the other room.

But the blanket is the best. I got it as a birthday gift, and I’m glad I can say it’s mine, because this way Adrian can’t just steal it all the time.

Christmas presents. And Christmas food. Not many photos of things happening because I mostly forgot about my camera.

We used to put Christmas gifts out under the tree the night before, both for the festive feeling and for the kids to go and poke and shake and wonder who would be getting what. With a cat in the house, that is not an option. Shiny paper, dangly ribbons, chewable boxes? Temptations, temptations everywhere. Now we had the gifts hidden away until just before opening time, and when that arrived, we shut Nysse in the bedroom. Adrian was disappointed, but what can you do.

Devilled eggs are our go-to festive lunch food. This time we made them extra festive, with “holly” decorations made of pomegranate seeds and parsley leaves, based on an idea that Ingrid found on TikTok. Served with Eric’s vörtbröd, three kinds of pickled herring (blackcurrant; sesame and wasabi; sour cream and fish roe) and a beetroot salad.

Ingrid was the mind and hands behind the most decorative part of Christmas dinner as well – a Pavlova wreath. Three kinds of cheese with biscuits and marmalade for starters; Hasselback potatoes, black bean “meatballs”, cranberry sauce and brussel sprouts for the main course; Christmas pudding for those who like that kind of thing.

Twice during the cooking and food prep I was caught out by using what seemed like risk-free substitutes.

For the beetroot salad, I bought pre-cooked beets to save time, instead of boiling them at home. Chopped them up, mixed with all the other things and the sour cream dressing – and the salad came out white. For the record, beetroot salad is NOT supposed to be white but violently purple. I don’t know what they did with the pre-cooked beets – peeled them before cooking, maybe – but clearly they lost all their colour. Luckily we had a jar of pickled beets in the fridge, so I used those to top up the salad and give it some colour at least.

For the cranberry sauce, there were no fresh cranberries to be had anywhere, so I bought frozen ones. I suspect the fresh ones that used to be available around Christmastime may have been of the American variety (so maybe they weren’t even sold for Christmas but for Thanksgiving and then afterwards as long as stocks lasted), whereas the frozen ones are definitely of Swedish origin. And clearly they behave differently when cooked. The fresh ones were rich in pectin, so the sauce thickens after cooking and cooling. The frozen ones clearly aren’t, because the sauce remained as runny as anything and I had to thicken it with cornstarch. Tasted delicious, though.

Fresh snow, just in time for Christmas!

Last-minute shopping for Christmas gifts. In shock to discover that Alan Payne have changed their colour range and the dark brick-red colourway is no longer produced.