The knitting of the Prayer Shawl is complete. There is still the fringe to be done, a process only slightly less time-consuming than the knitting. The reindeer who is modeling this for me is perhaps a little small for it. However, he looks pretty cozy here with the Christmas books.

The Prayer Shawl is just a big rectangle of Homespun. The stitch is k3,p3 to end, always knitting the purl stitches and vice versa. #2 daughter is a couple of feet into hers.

The Christmas books are our collection of holiday picture books (and a few novels, including A Christmas Carol and Miracle on 34th Street, both worth reading every year). I would have a very hard time choosing one or even a few favorites. The reindeer appears to have been reading The Polar Express, The Jolly Christmas Postman, and The Jan Brett Christmas Treasury. All excellent choices. I haven’t bought a new one yet this year, but I may get Shall I Knit You a Hat?

We have been very busy at work, and at home we have been busy with candy making and cookie baking. We make boxes for friends and relatives and choir directors and delivery people (although I missed the Schwann’s man, I’m sorry to say. He deserved one, too). Here’s the current inventory:

turtles
Reindeer Chow
honey nougat chocolates
English Toffee
chocolate taffy
molded peppermint chocolates
Rocky Road
Bourbon Fruitcake Bars
Danish Almond Crisps
Mocha Truffle Cookies
Peppermint Angels
Cranberry Pecan Swirls
Cranberry Chocolate Chip Cookies
Honey Oat Trees
Tin Roof Cookies
Ginger Stars
cranberry tea bread

And probably a few more that I have forgotten. We also still have a few more kinds to make. It smells wonderful at our house.

There is one more mail-order item which has not yet arrived. They said it would come today, but just this morning sent a notice claiming that it will be here on the 23rd. As it has not yet been shipped, I was not surprised to hear that it wouldn’t arrive today as planned, but I am not sanguine about that December 23rd arrival, either. I have been going to the website every day to check on its status. This gives me some sympathy for those customers who call us every day checking on things they have ordered from us.

I do not have the option of plaintive complaints and bids for sympathy at the website. There isn’t any way for me to express anger even if I felt it (and some of our customers do — one told me a couple of weeks ago that it “toasted her biscuits” that her Jack in the Box hadn’t yet arrived). But I know that I was the one who waited too late before placing my order. I was watching the price go down and wanting to take advantage of sale prices. And then I didn’t even spring for faster shipping. So there is no point in my getting mad. Um, even though they said they would get it to me by the 21st.

It is the 21st, the solstice, unless this year it is the 22nd. No matter, I will still offer you this very strange little carol from Sweden, “Yuletide is Here Again.” It is a sprightly dance tune, and you should pull out your fiddle right away and learn to play it so that you will be prepared for any winter solstice dances that might come along.

This the the second verse:

“Yuletide is here again, and Yuletide is here again, and happy days we’ll have till Easter. –
This is not the truth, and this is not the truth, for Lent comes in between and fasting. “

Doubtless this reflects the somewhat fatalistic and sad humor of the Scandinavians, a result of their having all that snow and so little light. That Man assures me that South Dakota appeared to be a fairy garden to the hardy Scandinavians when they arrived there. I have had a number of Scandinavian students, and my entire knowledge of those nations is based on my acquaintance with them, so I am obviously talking through my hat, but I know that they find that our American habit of smiling all the time makes us seem, in the words of one Swedish girl, “Like fools, or children.”

Here it is in Swedish. It has a better midi, and probably just sounds better all around in Swedish. So here you can hear it sung very sweetly in Swedish by a treble choir. There. You are now all set.

Christmas has gotten very contentious this year. This is not just the usual disagreement over whether Christmas has become too materialistic — or remained too spiritual. No, this year the fuss is over whether the mention of the the word “Christmas” should be eschewed entirely. Some would have us pretend that the national holiday that falls on December 25th is not necessarily Christmas.

This year it happens to be the beginning of Chanukah as well, and it is always just a few days after the winter solstice and right before Kwanzaa, but there is little point in ignoring the fact that Christmas is a national holiday or that it is actually called “Christmas.” And yet, there are schools where students and teachers can be punished for saying “Merry Christmas” instead of “Happy Holidays.” There are also people suing stores for saying “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas.”

This strikes me as a silly debate. I say “Merry Christmas” most naturally, because that is what I am celebrating. I say “Happy Chanukah” most naturally to Jewish friends and customers because that is what they are celebrating. “Happy Holidays” feels like a euphemism to me, and I feel odd saying it. But I certainly accept it from others as an expression of good will. What kind of Grinch would a person be to become offended by any expression of good will?

But this year, this small issue has become so large that I am scrutinizing customers carefully before deciding what to say to them. Santa Claus earrings? They get a “Merry Christmas.” The next person, who gives me no clues as to whether they are observing Yule, or Divali, or Festivus, gets a cheerful “Thank you,” while I hope that they won’t be offended that I haven’t said “Merry Christmas.” Those with “Christ died for us” on the checks are a tough call, since they may be Puritans, but I usually chance the Christmas greeting.

Now, I am not saying that Christmas shouldn’t be controversial, or that everyone should accept it. There are plenty of good reasons to ignore or even disapprove of Christmas. Maybe you aren’t Christian, and you don’t care to join in with some other religion’s holiday just because the federal government happened to choose that one to observe. Maybe you are a Christian, and you don’t care to have your sincere faith interlarded with pagan festival leftovers. Maybe you don’t like to make merry on command, and would rather wait until some time when you feel spontaneously merry. (This third reason puts you in the Scrooge category, of course, but I can see that continual injunctions to be merry would take a toll on someone who felt this way.)

I would accept any of those as valid reasons. But the thing that people are getting their knickers in a twist over, the reason they do not want to hear the words “Merry Christmas!”, the reason towns are calling their public Christmas trees “holiday trees” is this: not everyone celebrates Christmas.

So? Not everyone celebrates my kids’ birthdays either. Hey, not everyone celebrates Cinco de Mayo or Chinese New Year or Mardi Gras, and that doesn’t stop grocery stores from having specials tailored to those holidays. We do not carefully say “Happy Holiday!” around the Fourth of July in case we are talking with a Canadian, or say “Season’s Greetings” on St. Valentine’s Day. You may not celebrate Elephant Awareness Day, Shakespeare’s birthday, or Martinmas, either, but that is no reason for the jolly celebrants of those days to quench their enjoyment of those feasts.

No, if you want to object to public displays of Christmas joy, you have to come up with a better reason. Apparently, 40 Santa Clauses recently went rampaging around Auckland, so the possibility of riots in New Zealand might be a good reason to avoid excessive Christmas display. Or the snippiness of the people who are objecting to “Happy Holidays.” That would be a good one, too. Or the cost of ostentatious Christmas display, compared with what the money used in that way could do for people in need.

Or just give in and enjoy the whole thing, knowing that normal life will return in just a couple of weeks.

I have a story for you today, “Christmas Every Day.” Read it to your children if you have any, or to yourself, but don’t miss it. And the song for today is “We Wish You a Merry Christmas.” You can see and hear cartoon animals singing it here, another thing you absolutely should not miss.

The party was fun. Here is a pavlova meringue base filled with white chocolate mousse, with a raspberry sauce and chocolate drizzles. Atop it is a mouse made from chocolate and nuts and a cherry. So we have a mouse in the mousse, or a Merry Christmouse. Other items in the picture include wine and cheese and Janalisa’s bottom.

Partygirl says it is now okay to put up a tree (we’ve had ours up for two weeks, but she is strict) and we put up our garlands and wreath as well. We sang Christmas carols (rather than Advent hymns) in church, and at home, too. The boys went and did their Christmas shopping (and #2 son was excited enough about his purchases to tell me all about them in a loud whisper, bless him).

After the party, I put one of the freezer meals into the oven for our dinner, and we ate it in front of the fire while playing games and watching holiday movies. I finished the ribbing on the cardigan, and got back to the Prayer Shawl.

Apart from a general sense of festivity, I am trying to keep things as much on a normal schedule as possible. We intend to go the gym today, and of course most of us still have some combination of work and/or school.

Our song for the day is “O, Little Town of Bethlehem.”  We sang it to the most common tune, “St. Louis,” in church yesterday, but #2 daughter prefers to sing it toVaughn Williams’s “Forest Green.” You can find everything from dulcimer tab to ringtone versions of this song online (as well as plenty of musings on the contrast between the peacefulness of the song and the reality of life in modern Bethlehem), and it has been recorded by a great variety of artists, including the excellent a cappella group Take 6 and the great Nat King Cole, Emmy Lou Harris and Elvis Presley. That last link will take you to a rather creepy site where you can actually hear Elvis Presley singing the song. Or you can hear someone called elfdaughter singing it to “Forest Green” in a breathy and tentative voice here.

But chances are you know this song yourself already and can just sing it while you contemplate the Trinity, deck your halls, or whatever you normally do at this time of year.

I woke up this morning with the lovely French carol, “Quelle est cette odeur agreeable?”, playing in my mind, so that can be the song of the day. The site I am linking you to claims that this comes from John Gay’s Beggar’s Opera, but that is not true, as the carol predated the opera. The tune was used by John Gay, a contemporary of Handel, with the words “Fill every glass, for wine inspires us…” It is now also known as a fiddle tune, under the title “Three Famed Generals.” It is such a gorgeous tune that we cannot disapprove of any use of it.

The carol chronicles the overwhelming sensory experiences of the shepherds who were visited by angels announcing the birth of Jesus. I like this because we are inclined to overlook that when we think of this scene. That is, in all the pageants, Charlie Brown Christmas Specials, etc., where this story is told, the focus is on the fearfulness of the shepherds, and the greatness of the angels’ announcement. Reasonable enough. But this carol, written from the viewpoint of the shepherds, speaks of the scent of the angels, the sound of the music, and the generally overwhelming beauty of the experience. I have linked you to the original French because I like that best, but if you scroll down the page, you will find links to several translations.

Today we have the children’s Christmas pageant at church, and we will sing “The First Nowell/ Pachelbel’s Canon,” which should have the people swooning in the pews. Following this uplifting morning, we have a party going on. We intend to fill every glass and see if wine inspires us.

My husband bought this very pretty bottle of wine for the occasion.

The kids and I have made the house as nice as possible. It is a good idea to have people in around this time of year, not only because it is fun to have people in, but also because that gives you impetus to get your house clean and decorated. Then you can relax and enjoy the holidays in pleasant surroundings without further effort.

That is the plan chez fibermom. My husband and daughter are on holiday now, the boys have three half-days before their vacation begins, and I am feeling festive even though I am still working. I hope you are too.

#2 daughter ambled into the kitchen. “Who’s been making sock monkeys?”
“What?!”

Wait — that is not the beginning of the story.

I was the only one of the three drivers in the household who was working yesterday, and I am also the one with the unreasonable fear of freeways, so naturally I was the one to go pick up #2 daughter. She had gotten a ride with a nice young man from the county just north of us, and for most people it would have been nothing at all. For me, it was a drive on a freeway. In the dark, alone, when snow was predicted. In other words, the stuff of which horror movies are made.

Really, it was good for me to do this. And I survived. But it is one important factor in the sock monkey incident.

Another factor is the kind of day it was at work. The Princess and I were working, and it was of course a busy day with lots of toys and books being gathered up for Christmas and Chanukah gifts.

But it was also a day of tragic tales. The Princess had trouble with her heater and had to go fight with the gas company. #1 daughter’s mail delivery has been stopped for some reason — I thought maybe they had accidentally held her husband’s mail while he was on the sub, which presumably they do for the single guys. And then there was the sudden death of a customer’s child, the customer who told us humorous tales proving that his ex-wife was “evil,” the grandmother nearly incinerated by an exploding aerosol can, the baby born terribly deformed following the accident at Chernobyl — they just kept coming, one after another. Usually at this time of year,we keep chocolate under the counter to soothe the stressed-out, but yesterday it was the box of Kleenex that had to be pulled out.

When #2 daughter called in the midst of all this to say that she would be home earlier than expected, and I would need to leave directly from work to fetch her, I called home and asked #1 son to hide all evidences of the mysterious craft project I was making for #2 daughter — namely a sock monkey.

Then I returned to the tragic tales, and then I did the Terrifying Drive of Doom.

Thus it was that by the time I got home with #2 daughter, I was not in tip-top condition. And so, when she ambled into the kitchen as I was fixing us omelettes for a late supper, and asked who was making sock monkeys, I cried out, “What?!” I was not functioning as well as I usually do, you see, and was not able to suppress my reaction.

“What?!”, in this context, means “You’re kidding! I told that boy to hide the evidence!”

But it was obviously not a sensible rejoinder to the question. I had a split second to come up with something that might turn the unthinking exclamation into something sensible. So I said, with an expression of shock and horror, “Someone’s making sock monkeys?!”

That didn’t really improve the situation much, of course. By the time my husband came in, we were flopping all over the kitchen in gales of laughter. And I had to give in and give away the surprise.

It’s great to have her home. And here is “The Christmas Waltz,” a really fun and happy song. The only page that I could find with a midi file was covered in ads, including salacious ones, so I apologize, but it is a very fun song to sing. It has been recorded by everyone from Frank Sinatra to Amy Grant, and you can find the guitar chords here, so you are all set.

I must make one last trip to the grocery before work today (I know, I said I was through with all that, didn’t I?), and try to get the house cleaned up or at least shoveled out. Enjoy your weekend!

So I went to six stores, plus of course a full day at the one where I work, and still got home in time for dinner. I was able to get an item I could not find here by the simple expedient of calling #2 daughter and asking her to pick it up when she went into the city. I have finished my holiday shopping. I ordered the meatitude (meat and cheese tray) from the local butcher and the sweetitude (Buche de Noel) from the local baker, and we will pick those up on Christmas Eve. We will also have to get some fresh fruit and veg on that trip as well. Otherwise, I’m through.

Now, if I were to do the Awareness and Accountability thing in the style of Bridget Jones for the week, I would have to put it like this:

gym visits: 3
average servings of vegetables eaten per day: 2
average cookies eaten per day: 3
nights of interrupted sleep because of excessive thinking about to-do list: 3
number of critical errors made in mysterious craft project on account of trying to work on it while exhausted: 1

It could be worse.

Actually, it’s rather fun to write that way, so I could also add

conversations with friends on the importance of proper perspective and spiritual focus during Advent: 3
conversations with customers about how busy and stressed they are: eleventyhundred
conversations with customers in which they recommended books to me: 2 (Sister of my Heart and The Finer Points of Sausage Dogs)

Here is a song for today: “When Came in Flesh the Incarnate Word.” You will not be amazed to hear that this pretty Advent hymn is hardly ever found in hymnals and practically never sung. The title is such a stumbling block. And then it contains the words “breast” and “bosom,” always a problem for modern singers. In fact, let me just give you one verse here:

“When comes the Savior at the last,
From east to west shall shine
The awful pomp, and earth aghast
Shall tremble at the sign.”

For us in the 21st century, just disentangling this enough to realize that it is “the awful pomp” shining “from east to west” is bad enough, and then we have to figure out that the earth is aghast and trembling. And then we’re supposed to contemplate awful shining pomp and aghast earth while we drink our eggnog? Forget it!

But the tune, attributed to the wonderful Purcell, is so pretty that you should at least have a chance to listen to it. Perhaps someone could translate it into Finnish for us so that we could sing it without having to say “virgin’s breast” and “burst the grave.” One or the other, after all, but both in one song? It’s a bit much.

The big news here today is that #2 daughter is coming home for Christmas. Tonight! Pretty exciting. In fact, I will offer you a second song in honor of this event; “How Great Our Joy!” This song has simple and pleasant words, including the very cool refrain “Joy! Joy! Joy!” on an ascending scale with an echo, which everyone can sing with gusto, and little children particularly like.

In this book, Stephanie Plum is having trouble getting her Christmas preparations completed because she is troubled by supernatural beings, spontaneous combustion, and hordes of angry elves. You can’t argue with that, can you? I’m having a party on Sunday, and if the house is not clean, I intend to claim that I was delayed by spontaneous combustion and angry elves.

For today’s song, “Marshmallow World“, you will need a big band. If you don’t have one handy, you can hear this recorded by Dean Martin or Frank Sinatra or Sammy Davis Jr. or Johnny Mathis or the Cheetah Girls, or see the decorations inspired by the song at the White House. Or, what the heck, you can play it on the guitar. Here are the chords.

This is a surreal song about the landscape being made up of marshmallows and whipped cream, a little nightmarish if you listen closely — so don’t. It has a really catchy tune. You can hum it as you race around doing holiday preparations.

And a lot of people are doing that. We had a customer the other day who had to have four tries to count out $1.50 for laminating. I completely understood. She had so many things going on in her head that there wasn’t room for the counting process to take place.

Today is my final shopping day. This is another of my personal holiday deadlines. I don’t like to set foot in a store (except for my workplace)after the 15th. Sometimes I have to, of course. “Personal deadline” doesn’t excuse running out of cat food. But my plan is that between dropping #2 son off at school and going to work, I will take care of the groceries and the stockings and any lingering stuff that I haven’t done yet, and then be free of all transactions (from that side of the counter) until New Year’s.

I am making something, though. There is a secret item that someone has been wanting, and I had ordered a kit, and it finally arrived yesterday. Past the deadline, but I think it can be done with secrecy and dispatch.

My boys are working on bracelets like the one in this picture. It’s the blue thing to the left of the camel. #2 son made it and hung it on the tree, with a snowman gift tag attached. In the olden days, the Christmas tree had all the presents hung on it (before rampant materialism made that impractical) and was unveiled to the children on Christmas Eve. I don’t think that #2 son is trying to revive this custom, but I do not have any other explanation.

Some of us are old enough to recognize this medium as macrame, but the kids call them hemp bracelets or friendship bracelets. They make necklaces, too. To the right you will find the stuff they make them from.

Here are directions if you want to try this yourself. This link is for a simple one. There are many more complicated patterns, but I often have trouble following them from a page. Let us not discuss my attempts to make a Turk’s Head knot the other evening. Suffice it to say that there are lots of pages with directions for a Turk’s Head knot if you want to try one.

At the craft fair this fall, I saw some of these things made with leather, so I bought the boys some leather string (?) in hopes that they would make one for me with the leather, but they find it hard to work with. Or possibly girlie. Who knows.

A final shopping tip for you: free weights are sold by the pound. Like potatoes. This surpised me. They still seem easier to buy than car stereos.

My mother gave us this advent calender. My grandfather always sent us German ones when I was a child. After his death, I bought them for my own children — the German ones, still, or sometimes American ones that were a bit different. Then I bought the Playmobil ones at work for some years. This year I hadn’t gotten around to it by Thanksgiving, but fortunately my mother thought of it. Because it is not that popular a custom, there are few available in our town, and if you are late, you may go without.

These calendars count the days from December 1 to Christmas Eve, not Advent proper. At our house, we take turns opening the window — usually everyone comes to see the surprise. So today’s window is still closed.

In case you do not have an advent calendar, I continue my musical advent calendar for you. Here’s a file for the charming Polish carol, “Infant Holy, Infant Lowly.” You get to pick what instrument you would like to hear it on. This is a beautiful tune, which really benefits from being sung well. Any instrument is going to sound good on this tune, but I think strings would be my first choice. Strings are not among the choices on that site. If you sing it, take some effort with the dynamics and phrasing. It will reward you.

I had a productive day yesterday. This is very satisfying. I didn’t do everything on my list, because I follow the traditional advice to “overplan,” and because I did take an hour to read and knit. Oh, and maybe I can blame some of it on spending time quizzing #1 son on AP Euro. He’s having a hard time keeping track of all the information, or possibly he has not been paying any attention in class. How can you hear exciting stories like the marriages of Henry VIII or the travels of Peter the Great and not remember them? I try to retell them with lots of thrills and chills, but he is not enthralled. However, between the morning and the evening quizzing, he did remember quite a bit, so it was worth it.

Nah, I guess I cannot claim that I spent so much time discussing the Reformation that I didn’t get the bathroom cleaned, when the truth is I just didn’t feel like cleaning the bathroom. But I did make soap, and cookies, and did as much shopping as I can reasonably expect to be able to do in one day, and got the packages mailed with assurance from the clerks that they would arrive by Christmas.

They probably lie about it at this point. “Oh, yes, ma’am, that’ll get to New Zealand in time,” they chortle, thinking what an idiot I am to leave it so late. They just say it to stave off temper fits in the long long long line. Probably. I sympathize with them, if that is so. But I hope that the packages will get to their destinations in time. As promised.

I am not Jingle. Crazy Aunt Purl is talking about an irritating woman, nicknamed “Jingle,” who not only really loves Christmas, but is ready for it, and “aggressively happy,” to boot. I worry about this a little because, hey, I love the holidays, and I am ready, and I am happy, too. Just not aggressively happy, I hope. And I don’t jingle when I walk. But this is the time of year when those of us who are happy and jolly are supposed to … oddly enough, if you think about it… avoid being too obviously happy because as we all know, it makes people feel worse to be surrounded by good cheer.

I mention Crazy Aunt Purl as an example just because she is one of my favorite knitting bloggers, and you should go read her poignant and amusing post, which isn’t even mostly about Jingle. I could have directed you to any number of other, less enjoyable expressions of this feeling, though. This feeling that one’s own sorrows are made worse by all the happy people around is widespread. The Grinch (in the book, not the Jim Carey movie, which was just a perversion of the book) hated Christmas because of all the singing and happy children playing. “Bue Christmas” services are held at some churches in order that people who are unhappy at Christmas won’t be burdened by the happiness of others.

And we cannot forget these immortal words: “every idiot who goes about with ‘Merry Christmas’ on his lips, should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart.” (That’s Ebeneezer Scrooge in Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, for those of you who missed it.) Surely this was motivated not by abstract disapproval, but by some deeper and more personal reaction.

The central notion here is that seeing other people happy makes some people more unhappy than they were before. Now, since I find that other people’s happiness cheers me up when I am feeling a little out of sorts, I first had to think about the possible sources of this phenomenon. Here are some possibilities:

1. Schadenfreude. This is the feeling of enjoying others’ pain. One might imagine that a person who enjoys others’ misery might dislike seeing others happy. I can’t believe that this is the source of the problem for most sufferers. If it were, they could just look at other sufferers and enjoy their misery, exacerbated as it is by the sight of revelers.

2. “Misery loves company.” If I am being driven bonkers by my teenager, and so are you, we can commiserate together and feel that we are not alone in our trials. So someone who is unhappy might prefer to have others around who are also rather melancholy. I have a little trouble with this idea, too. If Scrooge and all his buds got together to cry “Bah! Humbug!” at one another, it would still seem pretty dismal, wouldn’t it?

3. Fear that happiness is a zero-sum game. That is, if Jingle is very happy, it must be that she grabbed all the available happiness, including yours. Even when we know that this is not logical, some of us feel this way. And if you have a little bit of this feeling, then at Christmas, when people go around being all excited and happy in public as it were, it might seem as though there are no wisps of happiness left for you at all.

4. “Always a bridesmaid, never a bride.” We often feel worse about our circumstances when we compare ourselves with others. During the holidays, we are perhaps even more than usual surrounded by images of happiness, and especially social happiness, so the imperfections of our own lives might stand out in bolder relief. We may be inclined to compare our imperfect families with the perfect ones we imagine our happy neighbors have, or our unattached selves with the apparently happy couples all around us. Or our unmailed packages and unfinished shopping with the relaxed folks who have finished their preparations.

Of course, it could also be partly Jingle’s fault. Being smug and looking down on people is not attractive or conducive to harmony. Nor is gloating. Those of us who noticed that Christmas was on the calendar and got ready have no business bragging about it. Neither, however, do those who didn’t get ready earlier have any business playing “Can you top this?” with their tales of unready woe. Except, of course, in “misery loves company” situations, as previously discussed.

My mother also taught me not to talk much about my own good fortune if I knew someone else was having a rough time. That is, if my little friend’s mom was in the hospital, she probably wouldn’t have a delicious dinner waiting at home, so I shouldn’t say anything about what my own mother was cooking (I would send over a casserole, myself, but my mother was never that kind of mom). If I had done well on a test, I shouldn’t exult about it if I didn’t know how my friends had done. This is courtesy.

But the complaints about excess holiday cheerfulness are not so specific. They seem to object to the happiness and cheerfulness of other people, not to their possible gloating or lording it over anyone. There is an expectation that we cheerful ones should moderate our jolliness in case someone else isn’t feeling jolly. We shouldn’t call out “Merry Chirstmas!” in case someone else isn’t planning on having Christmas, or at least not a merry one.

I can’t go along with that. This is the one time of year that we should be able to have unrestrained frolicsomeness.

Now, as to readiness, I am up at 3:00 a.m. for an excellent reason. I have been watching for the gift I had planned for #2 daughter to go on sale. It was hinted to me by a clerk in the store where I first went to buy it that this was the sort of thing that was likely to go on sale, and I have been watching the price go down — and up — and down again. It seems likely to go down into the two-digit range if I wait long enough. (there was a woman in the store a few weeks ago who advocated this approach for Christmas gifts, possibly influencing me to do this mad thing. “What if it gets sold out before it reaches that lowest point, though?” I asked her. “Then,” she said, “they weren’t meant to have it.”)

But at 2:00 this morning, when the cat woke me up, it seemed not merely likely but certain that if I waited any longer — like till 6:00 a.m., or maybe when the stores opened – the item would be sold out, or would never get here in time, or something. So I got up and came online and ordered the thing. So I now have four mail orders out there which I am hoping will all arrive before Christmas. And now I cannot get back to sleep.

So even those of us who have diligently prepared are perhaps having a little Christmas stress.

I have the day off today. I intend to clean house and shop and do my final fact-checking assignment and get my packages shipped before it really is too late. Since my husband is not working, I may be able to persuade him to join me in a little garlanding of the front porch. A nap is also in my plans, especially if I don’t manage to get back to sleep before time to get up, and a trip to the gym. My boys have been working on their handmade gifts, and I hope to hornswoggle them into joining me on some crafting for their grandparents. It ought to be fun.

But I will try not to be aggressively happy.

For today’s song, I offer you “Past Three o’Clock,” a 17th century tune recalling the waits of England. Not the queues, for which they are famous, but the waits. The words were written by George Radcliffe Woodward, a fellow who liked Medieval music, in the 1920s. You would think that, since this is a 20th century song, it would make sense. However, Woodward was a real fan of Medieval music, and must have like the mysteriousness of the carols of the middle ages, once they had gone through the muddling process of being sung for a few centuries by illiterate people. I love this song, myself. It has been recorded by Linda Ronstadt, but is rarely heard. Go out and sing it, I say!

Lessons and Carols was fun. Gesu Bambino was, as Janalisa put it sotto voce, a train wreck. And that moment right before the big jazzy chord when the accompanist was supposed to play the chord softly so we could all find our pitches before he went into his totally unrelated pyrotechnics — well, it passed. We all looked at one another in wild surmise, picked a likely-sounding note, and hoped the listeners would think it was supposed to sound like that. However, my solo went well, we sang more right notes than wrong ones (as Tawana pointed out), and overall it was pretty rollicking.

I had a couple of hours between church and the trip to the gym with the boys. While some penne was baking for said boys, I tackled the deep question: what to knit next? I have after all been knitting either by request or Christmas gifts for months.

Now, there is a project I have been planning for over a year now. I am about ready to cast on my 338 stitches for it. It has the huge advantage of being wooly, and will become large after a bit, thus doing its part to help us keep the heating bills down.

But, you know, I have a Prayer Shawl and a possum fur stole on the needles already. It was one thing to set them aside in favor of Christmas gifts, but may be quite another to continue to ignore them now.

Also, while I have finished my Christmas gifts and the deadline is past, I did not end up with either a bawk or a pair of Fuzzy Feet for myself. Nor do I have any mittens. In this weather, there may be an urgency factor to these warm things that outweighs my desire to plunge into Fair Isle.

But here is the Fair Isle in question: Alice Starmore’s Erin cardigan from The Celtic Collection. Isn’t it beautiful?

It may just be irresistible.

At the gym, we ran into the Falcon and his mom. She had just done an hour’s workout. #2 son and I did my usual 15-minute weights circuit, and then started on cardio, but he gets bored with that pretty quickly, so we left. He wants to do a longer weights workout. However, I don’t know how to do any more of the machines than I do. The body-builders, of whom there are a lot on Sunday afternoons, do a lot of resting and talking while they are lifting. But I have been told to get my heart rate up on the elliptical machine, and then do the weight sets in pairs — 15 reps on the pec deck and then move right over to the rowing machine for 15, then back to the pec deck for the second set and so on. The idea is to keep your heart rate up so that the entire thing is aerobic. This is probably not how to bulk up.

When we got home, I wrapped some gifts and started casting on. The first few rows of any project are a bit uncomfortable, and on 338 stitches the first few rows go on for a long time. The ribbing of this cardie is in color work. Why, thought Starmore, should she give us inches of one-color ribbing and let us get comfortable. Why not give us a shot across the bows right off?

Actually, I am not at all sure about the two-color ribbing. It doesn’t seem as springy. But we shall see. I am using Elann’s Highland Wool and #2 needles. I am also knitting back and forth. The pattern is designed to be done in the round, but the idea of knitting a cardigan in the round and cutting it up the front and finishing off all those ends just sounds daft to me. In the year since I decided to make this thing, I have carefully watched the knitting blog community in hopes of seeing some sensible reason to do this, and I have not yet seen one. Therefore, I am knitting it on the flat. When I reach the armscye steeks, I will consider again whether there is any benefit to doing that, as opposed to dividing the work. Any opinions on this will be gratefully welcomed. Even with these uncertainties, this cardigan is irresistible

Our song for today is irresistible, too. “Comfort, Comfort Ye, My People” is a traditional Advent carol from the Geneva Psalter which rags up real well. Nowadays we all sing it in a syncopated style which suits it so well that you have to wonder whether Olearius wasn’t thinking of that in the back of his mind, even though he was a 17th century German who had never heard a steel drum in his life. #2 daughter and I are going to do some solos at church, now that the choir has done its bit, and I am thinking that this would be a good song. #2 daughter is thinking Handel, always nice, and the director is thinking Ave Maria, so something good is bound to result.