On the first day of Advent

As a child I was always very excited to receive my advent calendar (carefully chosen and given to me by my Granny) on December 1st. The thought of opening the little bright windows was the major incentive for getting up and ready for school on cold, dark December mornings. I even remember one year when my twin brother and I decided to save our Christmas Eve window (number 24) until Christmas morning as it seemed like an anti-climax to have no window to open on Christmas Day. The calendars were always very bright, very pretty and absolutely did not contain chocolate. I'm a little ashamed to admit, therefore, that I was intending to buy myself a chocolate calendar after work this evening and was only thwarted by the fact that Thornton's had run out. Instead I have a very jolly calendar with angels piping, a choir caroling and little penguins poking their beaks everywhere. When I opened door number 1 it revealed a little choirpenguin in a pink cassock. I'm sure Granny would approve.



I've decided to spread the advent joy around a little bit so here's my advent calendar to you. Just click on the door to open it. I'll do my best to post a window every day throughout advent but if I fail be assured that there'll be a double window the next day to make up for it.



If you like your calendar a little more surround-sound head over to the Sonic Advent Calendar which felix has been putting together. I just clicked on door number one for my sonic surprise!

In knitting news I've finished the body of the baby Bhoy* cardigan.



The gorgeous contrast of the green garter stitch button band against the white stripes almost makes up for the hideous tangle that I got into whilst knitting with three balls of yarn (one each of green and white for the stripes and an extra green one for the button band on one side). By the time I got to the last white stripe it didn't seem worthwhile untangling the whole farrago and I just kept pulling the white yarn through all the green knots until I got to the place where I could cut two of the balls loose. After that knitting with just two balls for the striped sleeves seems like a breeze!

* if you don't follow Scottish football The Bhoys is the nickname of Glasgow Celtic who play in green and white hoops. The striking resemblance to the Celtic home strip was not intentional.