making spirits bright

Holiday preparations are in full swing around here, though there never seems to be quite enough time. I tried a new-to-me cookie recipe this year -- chewy chocolate-gingerbread cookies (from Martha Stewart):

Yum! I love the combination of spice and dark chocolate (I've switched to using Whole Foods vegan chocolate chips almost exclusively -- a good price for high-quality chocolate with very little filler).

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The kitters have been doing pretty well with the tree (no one has tried to scale Mt. Doom), so I added red glass balls and a few wee sheep:

So far, so good -- only two balls have been knocked to the floor as of yet.

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I'm deep into holiday gift knitting right now, and can't share too much on ye olde blog yet, but I did crochet a few squares for a new afghan:

While I'm not necessarily in love with the randomness of the color changes of the self-striping yarn, I am enamored of not weaving in many ends. I'll do some more and re-evaluate. Each square receives a cream-colored border before everything's sewn together.

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Still looking for an easy pattern or two to knit before Christmas? I am, and I'm about ifandany's recent quick knits posts -- hats (my favorite), cowls, toys, and mitts.

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Oh, I'm late to the game on this one, but I'm really enjoying Call the Midwife, the BBC series about young midwives (and some nuns) working in London's East End in the 1950s. Oh, Chummy... what a great character. A middle-class patronizing attitude toward the poor underlies some of the sentiments, but overall it's a good watch.