Longest Night

I have a fairly severe reaction to the dark part of the year. I have an inclination to hibernate. On many evenings, by 7:30 at the latest, I'm yawning and ready to climb into bed. I can easily sleep 9 - 10 hours a night and still be tired the next day. This always eases as the days lengthen. Usually I see a change once I am able to leave the office and find it isn't completely dark already.

But, for the longest night of the year, the Winter Solstice, I fight back. Dating from when my sons were very young, after we'd moved into this house where we've lived for over 20 years, I started a tradition of listening to the Paul Winter Consort's Winter Solstice Concert on public radio and wrapping gifts, therefore staying up waaay past my usual (and certainly way past my winter unusual) bedtime. I visited St. John the Divine Cathedral a few years ago, and saw a Paul Winter Consort concert here in Waterville one time, so can easily picture what the Winter Solstice concert is like.

I think there have been son-related activities and events preventing this observance in the past couple of years, but tonight I fought back my urge to go to bed early and am nearly done wrapping gifts. My sons are home from their first semester at college, but both are out with friends. Don helped me mix up a batch of English fruitcake but headed to bed while I baked it off. That's OK. The longest night almost begs for solitude. But, I'm not really alone. Lydia, the youngest cat, likes to be close by, so I have good company. And, I have longer daylight to look forward to tomorrow. The first step toward summer!

ON MY NEEDLES
I am about to start the decrease for the wrist of the lace shrug I'm making for my mother. I can just about knit the pattern with my eyes closed now.

The pink socks need to have the toes grafted, but otherwise are done.

The Norwegian Woods shawl, in cream-colored Silky Alpaca Lace, is going agonizingly slowly at this point. I'm in the first repeat of the last of the three main sections. Now there are 357 stitches per row, and I can usually only get through two rows at a sitting as it takes so long now. But, it is beautifully soft and will be absolutely gorgeous when it is done. My first full shawl!

And, what will definitely be a late gift for Don, a nightcap made of purple (eggplant, really) cotton from the Franklin Habit pattern in Knitty. It is a little hard on my hands -- the cotton yarn and the #0 needles. But I love the pattern.

NOT YET ON MY NEEDLES
I have a $50 Visa gift card that I got for filling out a health assessment online through work and haven't yet spent it. I think I'm going to use it to buy yarn to make a Vivian Hoxbro Nihon Japanese Kimono sweater from her book, Shadow Knitting, in the purple/blue colorway. It looks like it will be more affordable if I buy the Harrisville Shetland yarn on cones rather than in skeins. If that is true, I think it will be my Christmas present to myself, with yarn purchased from Halcyon Yarns -- maybe on the way home from dropping my son off at the airport on Saturday (he's going back early to go to Florida on a training trip with his diving/swim team -- we are not feeling sorry for him).