week 48 – welcoming December, paper crafts, and knitting ideas for cozy evenings at home

Do you agree that it feels like December comes out of nowhere? There you are, enjoying another leftover turkey sandwich from your Thanksgiving dinner when suddenly you need to buy and decorate a tree, put up lights outside, and find thoughtful presents for loved ones!

I am not a huge holiday decorator, but I do love a bright and happy Christmas tree! Patrick is the best at getting the lights just right, and the kids love to hang the ornaments. My favorite part is getting the tree, especially when we make it a day trip.

When I was little, there was a tree farm not too far from our house. Getting our Christmas tree was always something my sisters and I looked forward to each November. (We got our trees pretty early back then!) My grandparents and some of our cousins lived close by, so we would all go together to the tree farm.

The farm felt ginormous to us as little kids! We loved running around, playing escondido (hide-and-go-seek), and if we were good, getting a treat like hot chocolate or cookies inside the small house where you paid. My mom also loved inviting everyone over to our house to help decorate the tree. It became a big party; I loved the tradition.

Since I’ve lived abroad, driving out to a farm to cut down our own tree brings back all those happy memories. Tomorrow we’ll be driving up to Sebastopol to get our tree and I think we are all excited.

It’s been a busy week at the office and so I am a bit late on this week’s ideas, but, as always, better late than never! Here are a few things I wanted to share this week:

My Favorite Almond Cookies

For some reason, there are tons of almonds in our pantry: whole, slivered, blanched — you name it, we have it! I honestly do not know how this happened, but I need to find a way to use them up. And what better way than making cookies?

These cookies are a breeze to make if you have a food processor. They resemble Mexican wedding cookies. They are so good! Tell me if you make them.

For Bakers: My Favorite Almond Cookies

This recipe comes from “Five Holiday Cookies From a Single Dough” by Flo Baker published in the SF Chronicle. (Note: I typically only make half the recipe to make the Crescent Cookies below.)

Make Basic Almond Cookie Dough

• 1 1/2 cups unblanched almonds
• 3 cups flour
• 1/2 cup+2 tablespoons sugar
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 cups unsalted butter, at room temperature

1. Grind the almonds to the consistency of cornmeal using a food processor.
2. Add the flour, sugar and salt and pulse a few times to mix the ingredients. Add in the butter until the mixture starts to clump together.
3. Scrape out the mixture from the food processor onto a clean counter or onto a piece of parchment paper and gently press the mixture into a ball with your hands.
4. You can let the dough sit on the counter covered with plastic wrap until you are ready to form the cookies or store it in the refrigerator for later use.

Yields approx. 3 3/4 cups

Crescent Cookies

Preheat oven to 325ºF. Shape almond dough into crescents with slightly tapered ends. (About 1 tablespoon per cookie is a good amount.) Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper. Space the cookies 1/2 inch apart. Bake for 12-15 minutes. Place baking sheet on a wire and sprinkle the cookies with powdered sugar. When the cookies cool down, transfer them to an air-tight container. Store up to 1 week at room temperature, or freeze up to 1 month.

For Knitters: Warm Leggings

I am from the tropics and after all these years, I still get cold easily. Some years ago, I got my daughter some pajamas at the GAP. The ones in this picture. They were the largest kid size available, and after she rejected them, I decided they were pretty cool and started using them as my pajamas. They were awesome! Just what I needed to keep warm, but unfortunately, they still felt a bit too small for me, so I finally gave them away.

This is why, when I saw the jogging pants by West Knits, I thought, I HAVE to make those one day!

Stephen West, (@WestKnits on Instagram) is one of the most amazing knitters I’ve come across. His shawls are huge in the knitting world. And wouldn’t you agree? He comes up with the most amazing color and stitch combinations! Just look at his latest shawl. There was a knit-along for it recently, and when I saw it, I was like, OMG! If I were only a faster knitter!

Knitting one of Stephen West’s shawls is definitely on my knitting bucket list. And these leggings!!!

These would be the perfect replacement for the ones I gave away. I would love this whole outfit to relax after a long day out in the snow. You know, when you finally get to take off all those extra layers: jackets, gloves, hats, boots, and it’s finally time to sip something warm. I imagine myself in a little cabin tucked away in the slopes somewhere in the Sierras with my family. ( I dream!)

In other notes…

A little Mindfulness: Paper Crafts

This month, I’ve come across some paper crafts that brought back memories of school breaks spent at my grandmother’s house making holiday decorations with my sisters and cousins.

Paper Stars

The first one is from @valdirose, an Italian bed & breakfast account I found on Instagram. You can find many star ideas in their stories, perfectly labeled Stelle di Carta, or Paper Stars. After I found these, I realized that folding paper had a meditative effect on me. It was easy to spend part of the morning making a few stars while drinking my coffee. I can imagine so many ways to use these stars!
Do you love them, too?

Maarit Hanninen’s Tree Ornaments

These gorgeous ornaments are a free download from @maarit.hanninen.

Maarit Hänninen is amazing! I appreciate her generosity letting us have these beautiful ornaments to decorate our homes. Learn more about this Finnish linocut artist here. I think this would be a fun project to do with small children. They could help glue the ornaments and hang them on the tree. (Oh, how I miss having young children in the house!)

And speaking of little children, I am excited to share that we are expecting a new addition to our family! Our niece is having a baby! And now I have an excuse to knit cute baby stuff.

[My poor kids! I never had time to knit too much for them. That’s how it goes when you work full time!]

And with that, I leave you to enjoy your weekends.

Share your plans with me in the comments!