We decorated gingerbread cookies.

The Estonian post office knows how to design postage stamps that evoke a Christmas feeling. This parcel fit right in with the prettily gift-wrapped ones under the tree.

Our Christmas tree decorations are as eclectic as usual. The kids’ hand-made papercraft decorations mingle with delicate glass balls, cheap second-hand plastic decorations, novelty decorations in the shapes of moose and pigs, jingling heart-shaped mini-wreaths, hand-painted Ukrainian decorations and hand-sewn English ones, and everything else you can possibly think of. I thought we could perhaps throw out some of the oldest home-made things but when I told the kids to hang up only the things they actually really wanted to see on the tree, they hung up all of them, so I guess everything is loved by someone.

It’s a good thing I have children, who make happy artwork with rainbows and unicorns, and make me make paracord bracelets and gingerbread cookies and watch movies and play Minecraft with them. On my own I’d never dredge up the energy to even get started. I’d just curl up in the sofa from November to March and not do anything I don’t absolutely have to do.

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.

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.