TWiP: Tiny Sweaters ⋆ Polka Dot Cottage

Today is not only Saturday, it is the first day of that glorious week between Christmas and New Year’s Day, where all of the pressure of merrymaking is over, and all there is to do (assuming you have the good fortune of being voluntarily work-free for these days) is to play with your new toys in your pajamas. Or whatever the grown-up equivalent of that is. I have to admit, even at the very end of my forties, “play with your new toys in your pajamas” does sum it up rather well for me.

But this post is not about today (although the fact that I am relaxed and not super busy is what allows me to actually get this post written and published today). No, this post is about last week. I have been scrimping and saving my paid time off all year so that I could close out 2020 with a nice extended break. And so last week I was blissfully job-free and able to throw myself into Christmas preparations, and some much-enjoyed time at the clay table.

This time at the clay table led me to realize that I need to do more clay work in 2021. I have missed it. And one of the things I will need to do is make more of these Sweater Ornaments. They’re pretty cute, and I have ideas for improving them. Plus, wouldn’t it be nice if they were actually available at the beginning of the season, so they could be gifted? I’m putting it on my to-do list for next year, so come back in 11 months for that 🙂 In the meantime, as of this writing, I do have one left of the 2020 variety, that you are welcome to order, if you don’t mind it arriving several days after Christmas.

We had a pretty nice Christmas here at Casa Clarke. We saw one side of the family on Christmas Eve via video call, which we put onto our TV so that it was nice and big and felt more like everyone was in the room with us. I made a bunch of little finger foods for us to much on while we opened gifts and chatted. Then on Christmas Day we visited the other side of the family for about an hour in their driveway until we were frozen solid and had to escape back home to the warm fireplace and a nice dinner.

I would have thought that this socially distanced Christmas would be less work for me, but I neglected to factor in the food. Usually, we go out for at least one of the two days and someone else feeds us. Some years we go out for both, and nobody ever comes to our house at all, and so I have to cook nothing, and technically don’t have to clean much either. But this year, I cleaned as if we were expecting company (because, hey we deserve a nice environment, too), and I cooked both days. So, yeah, kind of crazymaking, but it was good. And I’m glad now to have the next several days to unwind and be responsible for very little else 🙂

How was your 2020 holiday, whatever it is you celebrate? Was it harder? Easier? Better? Worse? Whatever it was, I hope you also have had a chance to put up your feet and relax a bit.

So, what is This Week in Pictures?

It’s a roundup of the microblogging I’ve done on Flickr and Instagram all week. This includes photos I shot for Project 365 and any other extra images I may have posted.

Photos taken with 📷 (Canon EOS 80D) or 📱 (Samsung Galaxy S9).

Ready? Cast your mind back to Saturday last week…