In which I briefly return to planet Earth

It's always disappointing at the heights of fantasy to come back down to Earth. It's usually for the best, though, and I'd always prefer to do it of my own accord rather than wait to be brought crashing down. Why, you ask, might I need to come back?

Well, it has occurred to me (rather reluctantly and not without great resistance) that my family might not be excited by the prospect of receiving hand knitted socks. I can hear your gasp from here; I know, I know. It's tantamount to heresy to even suggest that such a thing might be possible in a civilized world, but I can't help but think that they might prefer some other kind of gift. And, as Christmas is about giving something that people want, it seems prudent to do some shopping outside of my knitting bag (or LYS) this holiday season.

This is really too bad, because I have been rather enjoying tromping about in Cat's book of sock architectures. But, I do think it's better to bite the bullet and step into a mall rather than make something that will be less than exciting to its recipient. So, we have begun Christmas shopping, and I have shortened my holiday knitting list considerably. I think I'm still going to see what I can get done, and perhaps offer the socks as secondary gifts, but we'll have to see about that. I think a lot depends on whether or not they seem to be popular at all. I mean, they are just socks, after all, and they are not the gorgeous over-the-top lacy kind, either. I wanted to keep it simple for the sake of the more conservative, so they're admittedly pretty dull. (The colors and yarns are great, though!)

Ok, enough of this boring planet. Off we go again...

This, of course, frees me up to create various and sundry new projects in the next two weeks without fear of failing to finish the holiday knitting. (I know, that is so cheating...) Branden will be gone all week on a business trip, so I'll have plenty of time to just kick around by myself and think about new things to knit. I have a huge list of after-holiday projects that I'm excited about, but I do want to spend the before-holiday period working on gifty things. We'll have to see what I can come up with.