A day like any other

My husband asked me a couple of letters ago how I really handle not celebrating Christmas when just about everyone else is all happy and merry and really getting into the festivities. He knows that my special day is the solstice, and that usually I do things over several days rather than cramming it all into a gluttonous 24 hours.

Plenty of people around the world do not observe Christmas as any kind of special day, and many have other days in the year that they celebrate with gifts and parties and a little too much food and drink. I often think that birthdays are more special than holidays, simply because your birthday is yours. That makes my husband's eyes roll as well, because he has no time for astrology :)

But seriously, it really is no big deal for me not to jump on the Christmas Day bandwagon. I've already opened the couple of gifts I received this year, when my daughter and her boyfriend came over for dinner on Sunday. They are spending today with friends who this year had a premature baby. But you see, just because I don't do Christmas, doesn't mean I don't participate in anything that happens at this time of year. Quite the contrary; many Christmas traditions are based on pagan activities.

I send Yule cards rather than Christmas cards. I spend quite a bit of time each November hunting down cards that say "Seasons greetings" rather than any reference to Christmas, and I make sure that some of them have no glitter or other embellishments on so that they are prison-friendly. They usually have trees on, or robins and snowmen.

Talking of trees, I would have a tree as long as it still had roots, but I don't have a garden to keep it in. So for the past couple of years I haven't had a tree indoors at all or any specific decorations beyond some seasonal greenery in a bowl. But I have a yew tree just 5 feet from my front room window so I usually have my own show of birds to decorate my view instead.

I give gifts. Mostly handmade, or just small things that I know the recipients really want. I receive gifts too, though rarely as many as I give, but that's OK. It's not the receiving that counts.

We share food and drink, with people we want to spend time with. That's possibly a little different to the majority Christmas where you "have" to spend time with "family" whether you want to or not because it is "tradition". I love to cook, so having the kids over for dinner was great for me to do a full roast. As I now live on my own, I rarely cook that much food in one go these days. Eating with friends is also part of my tradition, whether I'm making food to send to them, or eating out with them as I will be in a couple of day's time for one of our regular lunches.

So really as you can see, my end of December isn't that different to other people's. I just don't spend ridiculous amounts of money, or hoard bread and milk as if the world is about to end. It's quite liberating, in an old fashioned kinda way.

Seeing red

But in a good way! I've been busy knitting and crocheting for Yule, and there has been an awful lot of red yarn in use.

There is still more to make, with some miniature Xmas stockings as tree ornaments to go with our Desk Decorating Competition at work. Then hopefully during the Xmas break I will be able to finish a couple of projects that keep getting put to one side so that I can knit for others. It will be good to start January with clear decks again.

Knitting like a maniac

As well as working of course and doing a big spring clean of my home after my daughter and her boyfriend moved into their own place, I have been so busy over the past couple of weeks with small knitting projects.

It's that time of year when friends of ours celebrate Yule as well as Christmas, and traditionally between friends we swap small handmade gifts. I took delivery a couple of weeks ago of a large box of assorted yarns as a gift from a friend, and what a treasure trove it has been! So far, I have completed:

* a tri-colour beanie hat
* a set of tree ornaments
* a bamboo yarn scarf
* an amigurami unicorn (a Secret Santa gift for someone at work)
* a pair of boys mittens in gorgeous hand-spun yarn
* a little girl's beanie hat with crochet flower trim

The yarn talks. This may sound odd to those who don't do fibre crafts, but each ball or skein of yarn knows what it wants to be and who it wants to go to. Most are single balls, and some less than whole, but all were chosen originally by my friend Ciel and now I can feel her selecting and suggesting again as I pick through the box.

Next on the list is a plain pair of socks for myself, before I launch into a another doll and a baby blanket as our grandson is going to become a big brother in a couple of months time.