Active Solution has a tradition of themed Christmas parties, and this year’s theme is Men In Black, like in the movie. I expect the vast majority to turn up as agents in black suits and sunglasses, but it’s a lot more fun to be an alien.

I made an alien costume for Ingrid for Halloween, oh, maybe ten years ago? I can’t remember which one of us came up with the idea of a four-armed alien, but it was an awesome one, so I’m reusing it. Apparently I took no photos of it at the time, or at least none that ended up on the blog.

Two simple long-sleeved tops that (almost) match in colour and material, and a pair of gloves. Stuff it all and attach the one to the other, and when you wear it, bam, four-armed alien. Pieces of elastic at the wrists looselyl attach the fake arms to my real ones, so when I move mine, the extra two also move.

This time I think I’ve managed to do it with almost zero waste. Both tops are from Skyddsvärnet second hand, and the bottom one has a buttoned neckline so it fits around my waist without any cutting. I’m attaching them to each other with safety pins, which will make fewer holes than machine sewing would.

The sleeves are stuffed with rolled-up wool felt that I had in the basement; the gloves are my mitten liners; the stuffing inside them is a few sheets of newspaper and some squares of kitchen towels for the fingers. I hope to be able to dismantle it all when I’m done, donate the tops back to Skyddsvärnet, and put the gloves back in the glove box.

What I haven’t managed so well is getting it done in time. I bought the tops two weekends ago, and had the arms all done this weekend. I totally forgot to take into account all the evening activities this week – two concerts and a major after-hours release at work – so here I am, putting in safety pins a half-hour to midnight. I’m sure the lighting at the party will hide all shortcuts and mistakes.

Halfway through the autumn term, Adrian was coaxed into playing with an orchestra attached to the music school. A quarter of the way through, he was frustrated and close to giving up: with a late start and lots of tricky pieces to learn, he felt like he wasn’t going to be able to learn it all by the end of the term. Plus it took quite a lot of time and led to rather late evenings. He was their only percussionist, though, and they convinced him to stay on at least until the end of the term.

Today they had their end-of-term concert and all that hard work paid off.

I came there expecting something rather like the previous concert. I don’t even know why: I already knew that this was going to be an orchestra and not just a few kids with drums and some backing from a recorded track. And that it was at St. Birgitta Church rather than the school’s somewhat scruffy rooms.

This concert was on a whole other level – very impressive. There were two orchestras in one – a smaller ensemble that then got subsumed into a larger one. The larger version was basically a full chamber orchestra: violins, cellos, double basses, a whole row of woodwinds and brass, a piano – and percussion, of course.

The repertoire ranged from Jingle Bell Rock and Sleigh Ride to the March of the Toreadors from Carmen. Adrian was joined by one of his teachers and they both had a lot to keep up with. Complicated music to play and a lot of switching between instruments. And I totally understand why they were so keen to keep him: percussion was essential to most of the pieces. Adrian did an excellent job, and now he’s even considering continuing with the orchestra in the spring.

For some reason they don’t place the percussion section at the front and centre of the orchestra. I could get a glimpse of Adrian at times, but mostly not. I rather suspected that this would happen, and got a photo in when they were still warming up. Adrian is not in the frame but this gives a feeling of the ambience at least.

My favourite cyclamen has gotten an infestation of some sort of nasty, tiny, black fly. I spray it with a soap and alcohol solution and temporarily beat them back, and then I forget to follow up and they multiply again. They’re just an eyesore – I don’t see the plant suffering at all – and mostly on the underside of the leaves, rather than the blossoms, so it never feels particularly urgent.

For some reason those flies are not spreading, either. The pot with the other cyclamen is on the same windowsill, within arm’s reach, thus logically also within wings’ reach, but it doesn’t seem to tempt them at all.

End-of-term concert for Adrian’s percussion class. An eclectic mixture of Christmas music, pop songs, and made-for-drums creations.

Here’s Adrian expertly playing the marimba.

One of the pieces they played was “Crazy frog” which in its original version is known primarily for how annoying it is. Played by a percussion ensemble with several marimbas, xylophones and vibraphones in the foreground, it was surprisingly pleasant.

The photo is from their final practise run just before the concert. During the concert itself, the lighting was all weird and not at all photo-friendly: red and patchy. Some kids were squinting from having strong lights straight aimed in their faces; others were in total shadow.

After the concert, I tried to figure out what makes the marimba different from the xylophone. I asked a teacher but only got a mostly useless answer. (Yes, I heard that they have different sounds; yes, I can see that the marimba has a wider range.)

I did some reading when I got home and learned that one key difference is how they are tuned (to a different set of overtones) and how the tone plates are shaped. They look like flat pieces of wood at first glance but absolutely aren’t – they’re scooped out underneath into an arch shape, and that’s what changes the pitch. Yamaha has interesting articles about the tuning of marimba tone plates, among others.

The length of the resonators, the different types of mallets used, and the playing technique, all reinforce their characteristic sounds: deep and mellow for the marimba, sharp and bright for the xylophone.

Christmas baking day with my brother.

The kids were here but had other things to do. I think they have kind of outgrown much of Christmas. Some bits are important still, but others matter much less than they used to.

It feels like my brother did all the hard work – the kneading and the rolling – while I just brought out ingredients and tools, put things in and out of the oven, and tidied away the dishes and utensils. He did volunteer for all of it, and he did go home with a nice stack of lussebullar as well as gingerbread cookies, so I don’t feel like I took advantage of him too much.

The lussebullar we made based on an online recipe described as “the ultimate”, with 294 votes (averaging at 4.5 stars) and 174 gushingly positive comments. There were no special ingredients involved – just preparation, and attention to detail. It starts with a pre-ferment the night before, has you soak both the saffron and the raisins (separately) etc.

In our not-very-warm house the dough needed a lot more time to rise than the recipe suggested, more like three hours instead of one. Once they were in the oven, they came out absolutely perfect: fluffy and tender. I agree with all the positive comments on the recipe and have already saved it for next year.

The gingerbread cookie dough was hard to work with at first, but settled down with time. Some sources advise trying to keep the dough cool; our dough worked better when it had time to warm up a bit. The cookies had a lot of flavour but were not quite as crispy as I would want, so the recipe is not yet perfect enough for sharing.

Spånga Christmas market. Livelier than most years. An eclectic mixture of:

• school classes selling home-baked goods to earn money for a class trip
• cheap tat like mass-produced acrylic wrist warmers
• actual nice small-scale crafts like ceramics and jewellery
• candy
• food stalls
• scouts

It feels like Spånga scout club takes up more space every year, but it’s probably just that they’ve gotten a better spot and more presence. Chocolate wheel, gingerbread houses, you name it.

Adrian’s group was making and selling bacon pancakes (and fake-on pancakes for the vegetarians) cooked over an open fire. I can’t honestly say that it’s good value for money, but they were working hard to earn it, and a hot, greasy pancake with lingonberries went down well in this weather.

Nysse has the right idea, sleeping away a good majority of the day. I wish I could be like a bear and go into hibernation and just skip the next month or two. Wake me up when it’s light again. It doesn’t even need to be spring – just some daylight. Or some snow at least to brighten the world.

Everything is grey. It’s going to be +7°C and cloudy, with occasional rain, for the foreseeable future.

I struggle to find energy for anything. A midday walk makes no difference when all I get is dull greyness. I keep going out of discipline and habit. I get up because I always get up. I go to work because I need to go to work. I cook because I know that if I don’t serve myself a proper home-cooked dinner, I will have no appetite. I knit because at least it makes time pass.

Another interpretation of the same design as I did a month ago. Sharing the same principles, somewhat: aiming for the rectangles to be dominant without resorting to full applique, but this time allowing myself to use tulle. Lines for the ovals. Something opaque for the small filled-in oval.

It’s funny how differently we value things. The others in my embroidery group were gushing over the embroidered tulle, admiring its cleverness and unique look, while for me that was the lowest-effort part of the piece. It was like mindless doodling with yarn and thread: start at a corner, follow the structure of the fabric, “bounce” when you hit an edge, stop before there is too much of it. Almost mechanical. I literally chose it the other week because I was tired and couldn’t be bothered to be creative. I myself was much more proud of my very even feather stitch, and the woven oval as a nifty way of making something very covering without applique, and those got no notice.

Christmas baking will be happening this weekend. I’m not sure if I’ll get around to vörtbröd – probably not, because lussebullar and gingerbread cookies will have priority – but in case I do, I am all set with wort extract.

Wort extract can be bought online, and I know some breweries sell it as well. I went to Stockholms Aeter & Essencefabrik, conveniently located just a few blocks from my city office. Shelf after shelf of jarred spices, tiny vials of mysterious “essences”, and containers of all sorts of other things. If I ever need orange flower essence or dried chamomile, I now know where to go.

Less exotic, but about as unusual for me to buy as wort extract, was a small bottle of brandy. Of which I intend to never take a single sip, but it is necessary both for mincemeat and for brandy sauce to serve with the Christmas pudding.

For a couple of weeks, Nysse was particularly hungry, almost obsessed with food. Normally he gets his three servings of dry food, and cheap cat-quality canned tuna whenever he asks for it. Now he’s been trying to steal ingredients while I cook, and even try and sneak food from my plate on the kitchen table when I look away. I don’t know what it was, but I’m glad it looks like we’re leaving that period behind us.

We do generally have an agreement about what parts of the kitchen we share and which parts are off-limits for him. The sink, and anything to the left of it, is no man’s land. Anything in the sink is free for him to taste, or eat. (I make sure to keep the sink cat-safe whenever he’s nearby, and we all know not to re-use any bowl or utensil that’s been in the sink.)

To the right of the sink is the humans’ domain, no cats allowed. Having access to a small part of the kitchen counter and occasionally getting a taste of what’s there seems to satisfy his curiosity and cravings – he doesn’t normally try to encroach upon the parts that I’ve decided are not for him.

He has odd favourites. Like, everyone knows that cats love dairy: he licks tubs of quark and crème frâiche so clean that they almost sparkle. But Nysse also loves canned tomatoes and tomato sauces; grainy/mealy things like oatmeal porridge and bread dough; and – most surprisingly for me – the liquid around canned beans and chickpeas.