Maybe it's the change in the weather...

I don't know.

I never knit Christmas presents. Well, sometimes someone gets a thing I knit for Christmas, but only if it happens to be ready and done about that time. But I'm not one of those knitters who sets out to make things for a long list of relatives and goes crazy in the process.

First, the whole mid-winter holiday makes me a bit conflicted, which is an essay and a half.

Then my relationship with my extended family (including the in-laws) is a bit laissez-faire, so that throws a little more confusion into things.

And then you have my essentially anti-consumerist mentality.

And I have a hard time knitting for anyone but myself because I always talk myself out of what I think might be a good idea. It'll be a bad choice of yarn or color or style. They'll think it's weird. It'll be too much. and yet, not enough.

But somehow, just now, with the cold air blowing in and snow showers knocking the remaining leaves from the trees, I got the idea of knitting a bunch of presents for folks this year. Not sure where that came from. Maybe I'll see where it leads me.

We've had an interesting time this week. On Wednesday both kids had some troubles related to school. Owen was on the receiving end of harassment on the bus ride home and the Little Emperor was dishing it out to an innocent kid at recess. Mr. SABLE caught the virus we've been passing around, featuring an annoyingly long-lasting sore throat accompanying a cold. And the LE came down with a GI thing yesterday morning. The LE was much perkier this morning but I kept him home today, because I thought it might be bad if the trouble moves south, so to speak, and he were to have a mishap at school. (You know, try to sneak out a little gas and get more than you bargain for... Or maybe you don't know.) So it's been a week of disruptions and grumbling and malaise in our house, even though it's also a week of great triumph and change in the national political scene. Now, we're just hoping for a bit of triumph in the national economic scene. Though that leaves me conflicted, too.

And why should that be? Well, I have this really strong anti-consumerist attitude. And yet, our economy's health is largely judged on the quantity of consumer spending. I know that for our planet's health, it would be much better if everyone tried to stop buying stuff, just for stuff's sake. But as people have done that, because they are living with economic insecurity, then it causes more economic trouble. I'm glad I'm not in charge of solving these problems. They are big and complicated. And the experts are predicting that things will get worse before they get better.

So maybe I'll go cast on a few nice cozy projects that I can give away in December. It seems like a good thing to do on a cold dreary November day, a week before I turn 47.