St. Nick

I whipped up a pair of fingerless cabled mitts to match Si's Little Rabbit hat just in time to put them in his boot for St. Nicholas' Day. Good thing too, given the bout of cold weather we've had this week. (The picture above shows the entire ensamble, including the sweater I made a while back with the same yarn that still fits, but is getting a tad short in the arms.)

And, since I intended this post to be about Father Christmas, I will just mention that there will be no pictures with Santa this year (or possibly ever). He knows who Santa is. He knows Santa is pretend but that being said, the line between fantasy and reality is pretty much non-existent for him, so he seems more than willing to metaphorically embrace Santa. But literally embrace Santa...not so much. I didn't want to deny him the opportunity to visit Santa so I told him last week that we could see Santa if he wanted. Pretty quickly, he became interested in the concept and said "I'm going to see Santa." But just a few days later, that sentence got lengthened to "I'm going to see Santa, and I'm not going anywhere near him."
So we took him to see Santa, asked if he wanted to proceed with the traditional sitting-on-Santa's-lap-while-mom-and-dad-pay-for-an-overpriced-picture experience. He replied that he did not. And that was the end of that... or maybe not... We were in the local indi book store on the Island when a man dressed totally like an old school Father Christmas (green tunic, crown, glittery beard, etc.) came wandering in. Silas clung to me but gradually started to talk to him and gave him his request (a firetruck, which has been his unchanged request ever since we started asking him). No pictures were taken and no money changed hands. It was a sweet moment.

And now, for your feature presentation: