The photos of dumbbells are boring, I know, but I did a proper workout, with weights and everything, this week again, and I’m rather proud of that, and I want to revel in that pride for a moment.

Maybe next time I’ll bring out the tripod and try to get some more interesting workout photos.

Every year since 1988, the Swedish Retail Institute has announced a “Christmas gift of the year” – a product that somehow embodies the zeitgeist for that year. Apparently it is based on “an independent analysis of consumption trends” but it’s probably just some group’s fingers in the air.

Sometimes they capture the beginning of a trend, or the introduction of a product that stays. The CD player in 1992, a cookbook in 2002 when cookbooks were starting to be hip, a flat-screen TV in 2004. Sometimes they zoom in on a temporary madness – the spiky acupressure mat in 2009, a juicer in 2013, VR goggles in 2016.

In 2020, the camping stove got to embody the Swedish people’s new-found love for the outdoors, triggered by the covid quarantine; in 2021 an event ticket symbolized the end of the quarantine.

Anyway, it’s a bit of fun, even though I’ve never let it affect my actual choices of Christmas gifts.

Until this year. The Christmas gift of the year for 2022 is a home-knitted garment. Inflation is high, and so are electricity costs. There is a war going on, and people in bombed-out cities are without heating or electricity. The world feels like a chilly place. People want something to warm them, both in body and heart. And home-made crafts, which used to be something for grannies and oddball hippie activists, are suddenly trendy again.

I have a cardigan to finish, and I really hadn’t planned to knit any more socks right now, but I couldn’t pass up this opportunity. So there will be some socks under the tree this year again. I did half a sock today, just in meetings or while reading – thicker yarn makes the work go fast – so I can easily get some done before Christmas.

My dentist had some strong things to say about the state of my teeth at my last visit a couple of weeks ago. Flossing was yet another habit that I didn’t manage to keep up with when my energy levels dipped during the last quarantine year.

I’m working on forming new habits. Started flossing every morning – currently on a 20-day streak. Switched to a toothpaste that foams less so that I don’t have to rinse after brushing. Trying to also use mouthwash some time during the day but struggling to actually remember to do it.

It’s going to take me forever to get the old habits out of muscle memory. Every single time, my hand reaches for the old toothpaste that Eric still uses. Every single time, I reach for a cup to get water afterwards. I do remember, but the hand is faster than the conscious brain.

I always wear out the elbows on my cardigans. I am very aware of it when I’m wearing any of my hand-knitted cardigans, and try to keep my elbows off my desk, but I’m sure I’ll still end up wearing through them.

I’ve sewn on leather patches on two of my cardigans. For this one I didn’t think the leather look would be a good match, and I find it difficult to get ordinary darning to look even in larger sizes, so I looked for an alternative. (Good thing I have books about mending.)

One of the books described Scotch darning as a good fit for elbows – sturdy and hard-wearing. It’s effectively blanket stitch over weft yarn. I tried it out and it came out really well, if I say so myself. Sturdy and even.

What I discovered, and wish the book had told me, was that the weft threads should have more distance between them than for normal darning. Because effectively you’ll be fitting another thread in every gap between the weft threads. Mine ended up too densely packed and I sometimes had to stitch around two of them at the same time, to fit my stitches in. I ended up with some thicker wales here and there, but you can’t see it from a distance.

And it took so much yarn! That’s why there are so many ends to weave in. I had small hanks of embroidery wool specifically for mending, one of which was a lucky colour match for the cardigan, and it ran out just as I finished. I used up the whole hank for this one patch. I could have done another row if I’d had more yarn, where the fabric is thin but not quite worn through yet.

We had a minor snow storm on Saturday afternoon that delivered a few centimetres of snow – enough to cause mild chaos in traffic, with bad visibility, and cars in ditches because they were caught out in their summer tires. I caught the beginning of the snow storm on my way back from Uppsala, where I’d helped my brother pick up furniture I’d ordered. Luckily I did have winter tires on (Eric switched them that morning) and with careful driving I got home safe.

Sunday brought more snow. And then more, and more, and today was absolute chaos. By the end of the day the snow was knee-deep, over the edges of my tall rubber boots, so it must have been close to 40 cm. According to an article in Dagens Nyheter central Stockholm still got less than in the snowstorm in November 2016, but I’m not sure if that also holds for Spånga.


There was no way for the snow ploughs to keep up with it. Getting anywhere in the city was hopeless, I read in the news: cars stuck in the snow, many bus routes cancelled, trains delayed… I’m glad I didn’t have to go there. Here in Spånga pavements were impassable, except where there was enough foot traffic to trample a narrow path, and at least one bus had gotten stuck in a roadworks ditch hidden by the snow cover.

I shovelled snow for an hour Sunday night, another hour this morning, and a third hour at lunchtime, and I was still barely keeping up. There was just no end to it. My snow dump pile by the root cellar was as tall as me by the end of the day.

Cat, for scale.

Nysse was not fond of the snow, at all. The last winter was half his lifetime ago, and it wasn’t a snow-rich one, so he’s never seen anything quite like this. Once or twice he stepped on deep snow only to sink right through it, so that even his head didn’t peek out.

After I had cleared the deck and the back stairs for him, and the cars had made deep tracks in the snow in the streets, he made some cautious rounds. But he’s clearly sceptical of the whole thing. His walks are short, and he keeps shaking his paws to try and keep the snow off.

Adrian and Ingrid on the other hand are loving it. Both went out sledding with their friends – even sixteen-year-olds aren’t too old to enjoy sledding. Adrian spent all his breaks at school out in the snow, rolling giant snowballs and building snow forts and having snowball fights.

We’ve been saying for weeks, if not months, that we really should play a longer board game, with all of us. In the evenings, the kids are often busy with schoolwork or online games with friends. Whenever we’ve agreed on a time for a weekend, something always turns up. Adrian has a sleepover; Ingrid’s friends want to go to town…

This time we set the time a week in advance and decided that we’d go ahead no matter what. Whoever is not at home loses out. No postponing.

And of course Adrian was invited to a sleepover and was near tears about having to choose. The FOMO is strong with these ones.

But then we played Small World, which is one of our all-time favourites, and had a lot of fun, and the anguish of losing out on a sleepover was forgotten. I like the rule that this game has about keeping scores hidden until the end – this way everyone can believe that they have a chance, all the way to the end.

Eric won, by picking a new race in the very last round, with 5 bonus coins because the other players had been skipping that race so many times. I came in second place thanks to my army of skeletons, who very determinedly harvested their enemies’ bodies. Ingrid steamrollered her neighbours repeatedly, first with amazons and then with giants. Adrian’s trolls bullied my sorcerers because my skeletons had previously harvested too many of his tritons.

We’ve had this blanket since before we moved to London, because I remember buying it to match our sofa in our flat in Enskede. So it’s got to be over 20 years old. Still in good shape, and still my favourite. All our other blankets are polyester fleece – bought mostly for the kids over the years – but this one is 100% wool. A bit scratchy, but very cosy and warm.

The blanket has a fringe, which started out as twisted yarn. With time, the twist has gone out of most of the fringe. I’ve tied knots in the loose fringes, as and when I’ve spotted them, to keep them from unravelling completely. Now there are just a very few of the original twists left.

A fresh haul of chocolates from Chokladfabriken. I’m very lucky to have an office near one of their shops.

Adrian likes anything fruity, so his favourites are the passion fruit hearts, the ones with lingonberry-flavoured filling, and the raspberry ones. Ingrid also loves the passion fruit hearts, and also the ones with orange flavour, which I totally forgot to get this time. I like the various “chocolate on chocolate” varieties – truffles with chocolate ganache, the cru sauvage truffles, and so on.

At one point I bought a pretty box of truffles and pralines. Normally I just buy a bunch of them in a bag, and transfer them to the box (which I kept) when I get home. Now it bothers me that I didn’t line up the three with the diagonal slash in the same direction.

The workout equipment has been gathering dust for many months. But today! I actually did a proper workout for real, with weights and everything. I decided it several days in advance so I wouldn’t have the “I’ll do it tomorrow” excuse, said that it would only be 15 to 20 minutes so it wouldn’t feel like too big of a commitment, and got it done. It actually felt too short.

Stockholm is putting up generous amounts of Christmas lights in the city as well, not just in Spånga.