My cunning and devious plan for the christmas knitting season

Yesterday’s Yarn Harlot page-a-day calendar page contained a note that there were 9 weeks till christmas, which was a fairly strong hint to get on with the christmas knitting.

I know that a lot of knitters get worked up over the whole christmas knitting thing and I think that it’s brilliant that lucky people will be getting lovingly hand-knitted gifts, but this year my cunning and devious plan to deal with it is this:

I don’t think anyone is getting a knitted gift from me this christmas.

There. I said it.

Now please don’t think I’m evil, or uncaring, or a scandalous blight on the knitting world. (Well – you can think those things of me if you want – but I’d rather you didn’t)

My reasoning is this – If I want to knit something for someone, usually I just do it, regardless of whether there’s a birthday or christmas or other officially sanctioned gift-giving opportunity involved; there’s enough going on in my life for me not to want to take on the stress of knitting many gifts in time for christmas, and a lot of the smaller gifts knitters often make for christmas (like hats, cowls, mittens and scarves) just don’t make sense here since it is the middle of summer, and it’s too hot for mittens here even in winter! (and before you start, I don’t knit socks. Ever. For anyone. Not even The Man. Or my Mum.)

Although….The Boy has asked for a Sack Boy, and I have two nieces and a nephew for whom I haven’t made christmas stockings…and…

If anyone needs me, I’ll be hiding in the stash room, hyperventilating about how I’m going to get everything done now that there’s only really 8.5 weeks until christmas……..

It Gets Better

I was shocked and saddened recently to read about Tyler Clementi, an 18 year old gay man from Rutgers University in New Jersey, who died when he jumped from the George Washington bridge after his roommate secretly filmed Tyler's private life and streamed it on the internet.The statistics around all the young men and women committing suicide because of persecution related to their sexuality are staggering.

I can't imagine what it must be like to be so persecuted for something that to me seems so natural. We can no more choose our sexuality than we can choose our skin colour, or whether we like the taste of capsicums. 

Please go and read this post by the gorgeous and talented Franklin Habit on his blog, The Panopticon, discussing his experiences and the It Gets Better project. As a straight, Australian woman, I can stand on the sidelines and shout about how abhorrent anti-LGBT sentiment is to me, and I can quietly provide my support to anyone who needs it, but I can't speak from experience. Franklin can, and does, so very eloquently.