We made gingerbread cookies. Ingrid joined us for a while but not long enough for me to catch her in photos.

The dough was softer and stickier than usual so we had trouble getting the cookies off the table and onto the baking sheets. And the first batch got slightly burned. But once we had kneaded in more flour into the dough and adjusted the oven, the rest came out delicious.

I prefer the traditional shapes – the hearts, Christmas trees, and stars. They’re mostly convex, easy to handle, and are well suited for decorating.

It’s December and Advent of Code is on again. I begin my days by sitting in the sofa, feet up, solving the day’s puzzles. One advent calendar in the computer, another in the background…

In the past I’ve used AoC to experiment with new languages like Python and F#. Now I have enough to do at work so I keep it simple and stick to C# which is the language I am most productive in.

There’s a competition element to it, but I ignore that. Not getting up at six in the morning; not rushing through the puzzles. I’m just happy to take part.

There was a full-on crisis at work today, which I spent all day resolving. Once the crisis was over my brain was mush and I felt too dull to do anything. I’m borrowing this photo from an earlier day, and posting this two days later.

This is the second oven mitt I’ve patched in exactly the same spot: the tip of the thumb. I’m pretty sure that the wear here is due to the thumb getting into food. Maybe someone lifts a heavy, full baking pan with lasagna out of the oven and the thumb of the mitt gets a bit of sauce on it. That spot of food goes unnoticed and unwashed, and somehow it weakens the fabric. As we keep using the mitt the fabric in that spot gets exposed to heat and a hole is burned in the dirty spot. But only there, and not in the parts that are most exposed to heat. There’s some chemistry behind this, I’m sure.

Here are the finished 1337-themed woollen socks in all their glory. I hope my colleague likes them.

The yarn is Novita’s “7 brothers”, so I used Novita’s “basic wool socks” pattern which is made for this yarn. (The pattern only has sizes 30, 38 and 46 though, so I had to make up my own variation for size 42-43. Luckily 42 is right in the middle between 38 and 46.)

I first tried knitting the logo but it was fiddly and the result didn’t look good, so I ripped that up and knitted plain socks and embroidered the logo afterwards. It came out much better this way – nice and even with no puckering, and only very slightly stiff. And as a bonus I learned the Estonian term for “duplicate stitch”.

The cuff has a hidden “1337” in it as well. One row of blue, three rows of blue, three again, and then seven.

The advent calendar is up.

This year it is fully activity-based. I’ve gradually been moving in this direction over the last few years anyway: the kids need no toys or other stuff, not even socks or underwear. Not even pencils or little funny erasers or hair bands. And not even chocolates or raisins or other small snacks, because Ingrid already took matters in her own hands and bought chocolate calendars for both herself and Adrian. (An Oreo calendar for her, a Lindt milk chocolate calendar for him.) I think they’re close to outgrowing this thing, but Adrian was still looking forward to it, so here it is.

There is no point in trying to turn baking lussebullar or gingerbread cookies into a calendar activity – that kind of thing needs to be planned together with the whole family. The calendar activities are all small-scale and low-stakes. Take a Christmas photo of yourself. Discuss: what if superheroes had to do Santa’s job. Look at photos from past Christmases.

The little letters on the rolled-up activity cards help me keep track which one is which, in case some activity still ends up on an unsuitable day.

November has been dark and dreary, but I held out. Sometimes I hew to tradition. No Christmas lights or decorations, no gingerbread, no lussebullar before advent. Now, though, advent is here and we can finally put up advent lights everywhere, indoors and outdoors.

These coloured, patterned ones are my favourites.

The cloud of spangles in the background is a string of outdoor lights that we hang on our thuja tree. The first time we did it, Eric could reach nearly all the way to the top and the lights covered most of the tree. Now more than ten years later the tree is twice as tall and the lights are like a little apron on the tree.

We may not get a proper Christmas celebration this year but we can at least enjoy making lussebullar.

Textile crafts class at school has progressed from weaving friendship bracelets to actual real sewing. Adrian has taken a “sewing machine license” which allows him to use the sewing machines at school without supervision. He loves it, and has already sewn a fleece hat that he is very pleased with.

The hardest part about sewing is finding a suitable project. Adrian wants to make a Pokemon plushie, but most of the photos he finds on the internet have no pattern, and they’re too full of complicated 3d shapes for him to wing it. Like Snom with all its spikes, for example. But Centiskorch, another of his favourite Pokemon, is fundamentally a relatively simple centipede shape that we thought we could figure out.

This is the first time Adrian’s sewing project is actually Adrian’s sewing project, rather than him designing and me executing the design. I provided some construction advice and helped him pin the design to the fabric, but he has been doing all the real work: designing, measuring, drawing, cutting, and sewing.

A crisp, frosty day. I went out in the garden during my lunch break, hoping to find something interestingly frosty, but came back mostly disappointed.

The human eye can see the whole and the details at the same time, and not see distractions. I can see the frosty lawn and the little tips of moss with their spiky coverings of frost, and see their beauty – and not even notice the dead stalks of grass in the moss, for example.

But when I look at the same scene with the camera, I have to choose between the whole and the details. On its own, neither of them is captivating. And when the viewfinder focuses a small part of the lawn, it mercilessly also focuses on the distractions.

Four socks 100% finished now, after I wove in all the ends. Feels good.

I was going to take photos of the whole finished thing and show off my embroidery but forgot to do it while I had daylight, and these really do deserve daylight. It’s a good thing my colleagues don’t read this blog or otherwise I’d have to keep these under the wraps until after Christmas! (Like I will do with the other pair which I knitted for a family member. He might not even mind, but I still think a Christmas present ought to be at least a little bit of a surprise.)

It feels unfair that the last step of a knitting project would be the least enjoyable one. I don’t enjoy the weaving in of ends. It’s like cooking a meal, seasoning it, tasting it – and then having to end it with peeling potatoes. I even like peeling better than weaving in ends, because you can’t really get the peeling wrong, whereas with the yarn ends I can never get them quite as invisible as I would like.