The Rules of Christmas Knitting

I don't approve of Christmas of sneaking up before winter winds have officially blown autumn's red and gold hues out the proverbial door. I like crunching through leaves, slowly layering up woolens and grey rainy days. Mixing Christmas and Halloween is best left to Tim Burton.

But, I know how quickly the 25th of December can creep up on knitters. Before you can blink the Thanksgiving turkey is long gone along with the leftovers in the 'fridge and you're frantically knitting under the tree praying no one wakes up early. I have learned my lesson well in the last few years.

1. Start early. Nothing stresses me out more than not being able to finish something and feeling like I have to buy a gift. Then listlessly hunting through stores for something that is inevitably mediocre. 
2. Choose the Knit-worthy. It sucks to spend mondo amounts of time and energy searching for the perfect pattern, the perfect yarn and then labor over the perfect gift all for a less than lackluster receiver. 
3. Rotate the hand knits. In order not to spend every waking moment knitting (I know heresy), I choose 3-4 people to knit for every year. That way no one gets burned out on hand knits. I don't callus my fingers and I still enjoy the season. 

Within this loose structure of holiday rules I have officially started the Christmas knitting. A few weeks ago I casted my traditional Christmas sweater for the love of my life, Ben. I haven't really touched it since. This morning I casted on the first of a few pairs of fair isle mittens. I am using some koigu and madelinetosh to create the mittens above. I am super excited about theses as I've decided to use three different colors instead of two. Also I am picking back up a pair of socks that have been on the needles for two Christmases. I dyed the yarn back when I worked at Lorna's Laces. I wanted a Chicago flag color. Then I wanted to make my dad socks from it. I started them. They were Christmas socks in 2009. Then they were meant to be birthday socks in July 2010. Then they were going to be Christmas socks again in December. I didn't even try to make them birthday socks again. Now they needs must be finished. Right now they are on dpns. I am moving them to magic loop and see if they can't be done in time. That's all the surprises I will reveal for now. I don't want to be over ambitious by putting a list in the cyber space so I'll keep my cards close until I feel like this Christmas is under control.