Chocolate and stomach flu..

You're right, they don't go together.. which sometimes can be a really good thing! :) The stomach flu of course made a pause in my chocolate eating, and that was exactly what I needed but couldn't make myself to do. So for once I've gone a Christmas without gorging myself with chocolate! On Christmas eve I didn't even gorge myself on food, still having a feeling I want to be just a little bit careful with my stomach.. Although today I've eaten almost normally, just had some lovely potatoes and meat that wasn't Christmassy in any way! Apparently the gorging on Christmas foods I've done over the years is enough to make me feel like it's a blessing to eat "normal" food again ;)
This year I've had a lot of thoughts about Christmas and traditions.. I'm not sure I want to follow all of the ones from my childhood but I'm definitely not sure which ones to change or let go of. And as long as I spend Christmas eve with my parents that will probably be quite traditional anyway. I don't do almost any of the Christmas food just for me, Christmas baking on the other hand.. :P

Paper flying!

Literally! I've been folding, cutting, gluing and what not! :) There's so much fun out there to do and try out and learn :) I just finished a ball of stars/flowers using my lovely coloured origami paper and a tutorial I found on metacafe :)

Crappy quality as the battery in my camera died and I had to photo it with my laptops inbuilt camera..

In the video they use a stapler instead of glue, luckily I was out of staples so I had to use glue (no visible staples to disturb the eye) :D
I also found a video of a guy who made houses out of one paper just by cutting! First round it looked just amazing, now I'm starting to get ready to try for myself :P But I think that will have to be tomorrows project.. :) Making the flower ball above isn't very hard, but it does take some time to fold, cut and then glue 12 pieces together.. :) especially when I started out trying to make one of 6-pointed flowers instead of 5-pointed.. Snowflakes has given me a fascination with 'multiples of 6'-pointed things.. instead of the usual multiples of 4 or 5.. folding paper easily gives you the ones of 4 and I guess 5 is just from the basic 5-pointed stars and flowers :)

aaaand Christmas continues.. :)

Luckily today is a day for relaxing and not doing anything more than I have to.. :) I slept until 12 and then I slowly got up and had breakfast and dressed and so.. then I've been reading and looking through some craft-books I got for Christmas :) which finally got my inspiration level so high that I had to get off the couch and do some crafting! ;) It's especially a book about plaited hearts/ornaments that gets my inspiration soaring ;) plaited hearts is an old Nordic Christmas tradition, originally from Germany I believe. Although I think it has lost it's footing in Germany and mostly exists in the Scandinavian countries with a small foothold in Finland too (well, at least I still do them :P)

The book I got for Christmas and the four first tries :) The one on the top is supposed to be a butterfly ;) and the two green-purple ones are just playing with perceptions :) I think the heart within a heart turned out quite well! :)

 We made these hearts when I was a kid and my parents has some old ones left that they made for their first Christmas together :) but those are ones with just the regular plaiting :)

I took some pics of my tree today too, but the only thing showing is the lights in it.. I need to hang more stuff on it so that it will show! :P
Another of the books I got had a cut out bird, just an easy peasy thing but it looked very nice :) I've been thinking of cutting similar birds of nice papers for my tree, some light-coloured paper that will show up against the dark tree :) It's such a lovely Christmas tree this year, just so dense that everything get's lost in it :P

Christmas it is :D

Merry Christmas :)

What more needs to be said :) I had a nice dinner with my parents, although a bit more relaxed than earlier.. but then again we've all been more or less sick this week.. and I'm growing up and having Christmas my own way in my house so I can more easily let them do whatever and however they want the one day/dinner I'm there :)
I realized this year for the first time that Christmas eve is just one part of Christmas, the first big day of Christmas.. Then there's a lot more Christmas still after that! I want to bake gingerbread cookies, just need to find someone to eat them as I'm not really that much into eating them too :) or maybe I'll make some other kind of cookies but with my Christmas cutters :) we'll see.. tomorrow it's another family dinner, but at my Sis' place :)
Tomorrow I might take some pics of all the nice gifts I got today as well :) although more gifts coming tomorrow :P not so much more though..
Then the rest of Christmas is unplanned! But I hope to meet some friends and I got 3 lovely books on (Christmas) crafting so I won't have time to get bored anyway :P
Now it's bed, still get tired rather easily :)

24h bug

Yes, managed to get a 24h stomach bug.. but now I'm mostly well again :) just not very much appetite yet though.. but I guess it will return, at Christmas dinner if not earlier :P
I did manage yesterday evening, even while being half dead from bug and fever, to put the lights in my Christmas tree! And today I've been slowly decorating it, far from ready though :)
The worst part of having the bug yesterday was that I had planned to do a lot of cooking and baking! Well, some I could still do today luckily.. so now I have some sour dough rising and salmon with spices in the fridge and dinner is ready in a minute or two! :)
After dinner and a rest I'm going to start wrapping gifts! yey :D

I've got a Christmas tree! :D

It's thawing and drying in the bathroom because it's snowing again today.. :) But it smells wonderfully greeeeen! :) just like it should :) the cats are so interested, they've both been several times looking and sniffing at the tree :) and Tufs tasted the water it stands in to see that it was good enough :P
Still packed into it's plastic it doesn't look so nice.. but just wait 'til this evening when I unpack it :)

Update: Now the tree looks this nice!







I've also been knitting quite a lot, still two Christmas gifts to finish :) My sisters fluffy muffler might look like it was finished in the picture, but she wants it HUGE so it needs to go twice round her neck, it's just one round yet :) But it is sooo warm and soft and oooh! :) maybe I'll have to knit something similar for myself :)

 And the fluffy muffler in it's whole beauty :) so far almost 2 balls of yarn, will need at least one more possibly closer to 2 more... Luckily I have in my stash already :)

I'll just continue knitting and waiting for the tree to thaw :) some baking on my mind too, I'm thinking of a saffron bun baked as a plait and with marzipan in it too... mmmm :D

Gingerbread "village"

I've forgotten to post the pics of my gingerbread houses! Three small ones, start of a village :) I'm going to add lights too, even street lights if I just get it to work and find the right stuff I need.. I just have to wait until dad is free, he know electronics so much better than me :)

Aren't they cute? ;)

 I went to yet a Christmas art&craft market on Wednesday and decided to buy a necklace, I don't wear jewelry, never have.. But lately I've found a bit of an interest in it anyway.. especially when going to the Opera or some party it's nice to really make an effort :) one of the reasons I don't like jewelry is because I don't like metal.. especially not against my skin.. *shiver* But now there's a lot of lovely stuff with no traces of metal :) and I've matured some more ;) This one I call my sunshine as it's such a happy yellow colour :) I'm going to change the string to a brown one, probably a bit thicker too.. :) I also got another one, a red one, similar but a little bit smaller.. :)

The colour isn't perfect in the picture, it's such a lovely yellow-orange-brown mix :)

I've had quite a productive morning today :) Finished the Christmas cards (except some that I'm going to give when I meet them.. gives me a bit more time ;) and then I've been washing and doing dishes and stuff :) soon I'm going to make candy! Mmmmmmmmm! :D