There wasn’t much to include in a December recap but I was back Up North for Christmas with my family so here’s a bit of a catchup.
This year’s Douglas (my town’s Christmas tree) was very short and round, which pleased me a lot. He’s not even tall enough to reach the star and half his branches are sticking out. Christmas movies always have characters shopping for the perfect tree but maybe you should be less boring and pick one more like Douglas.
I didn’t have much enthusiasm for decorating but I did get my tree up eventually. My bike is now in my usual spot so I tried it in the (disconnected!) fireplace and it fitted well. I even made a very DIY tree skirt.
I would like to get a bigger tree for next year as some of my ornaments are too big. I had time to do some festive stitching for myself and bought the the Stitch Mail cross stitch box with these adorable gingerbread designs. I wrote about it in detail on SCK. It also included some mini motifs so I made ornaments for my family too.
Our Christmas Day walk was not very photogenic! Pretty much freezing fog for the whole Lossie part. My pom pom hat recently celebrated its 15th anniversary.
Over the border in Aberdeenshire, the Portsoy half was a lot brighter. We went back to the Secret Place (The Redmoss sculptures. it’s on Google Maps now so not that secret any more) and the big pencil is still there, plus some new additions.
I said I didn’t want any presents but you can see how well that worked! The watch, rainbow multi-charger and pens were my requests once pushed, but the rest were happily received too.
At my dad’s last year we did handmade gifts but this year we came up with the excellent plan of Secret Santa craft kits. So we all made a little wish list and got a surprise kit from that. Nicolette & I both got Craft Club kits, Jan got a mosaic kit and my dad got another ROKR kit (after completing the ridiculously complicated Dream Gift Factory). We haven’t started yet but looking forward to seeing everyone’s progress in the group chat.
I got a bonus LEGO kit and enjoyed making these kawaii plant friends who have now joined the rest of my unkillable fake plants & flowers collection.
Last year I made the origami snowman for my dad and this year he made me a wooden version! Look at all the cute details. It even has a spring in the neck to match the origami snowman’s bouncy head.
This must be my first watch in about 20 years as I really dislike wearing things on my wrists and fingers. I picked a cheap Decathlon watch in case it didn’t work out but it’s been fine and handy for cycling and actually noticing when someone calls me on the phone. I especially love that I can have a little reminder to keep going from my own Mt Fuji. Maybe this can be my 2026 motto (much preferable to ‘it could be worse’ that I keep finding myself saying…)
While I haven’t been blogging much, I am very much looking forward to doing my usual January posts. If Nintendo will hurry up and release the 2025 recap I will get my achievements up next, and then my year in books and crafts, and some plans & goals.
