Since the taking of the above picture, it has been crowned with a star made of tin foil and cotton buds, heh. I made the advent calendar in secret for Stacia's birthday - we both always liked the idea of hand-made advent calendars with a different small present each day, so I've been putting clues in the pockets and getting her to follow them on a hunt through our flat for little things like chocolates, buttons, origami paper.

We're staying here in France for Christmas, our first one together. We decided last year that we'd like to be together this time, and both of our mums are coming out to visit. I'm a bit nervous (I really want them to love it here, and to be able to show them around loads of amazing places, but having been a bit mentally AWOL means that I'm not brimming over with as much enthusiasm about the place as I would've been normally), but mostly excited - we have some plans to go to concerts and Christmas markets, and loads of French traditions (mostly relating to food...) that we're going to try out :D

My Christmas cheer has been exponentially increased by discovering the existence of insmallpackages. All of my five wishes have been answered(!), and multiple times - I feel spoiled by these people that I've never talked to before, it's lovely ♥ I asked to hear about the nicest things complete strangers had ever done for people: one, two, three, four; for a recs list of magic realism books and short stories; the fanfics that sucked people into Sam/Dean (Supernatural): one, two; the vegetarian meal someone would make to impress; and a recs list of books featuring male and female friendships without UST. So much to read *-*

And it's been really nice fulfilling other people's wishes too - it's low pressure, because people aren't expecting anything gigantic or majorly time-consuming, or might not even have noticed that you've claimed their wish, and it's felt good to do these little random things with no weight hanging over me from some deadline. I've done: 5-10 icons of yarn & knitting, a good vegan frosting recipe, links for good sites for reference images, mainly human body,
3-5 sparkly icons and a rec list of Sam/Dean or J2 first time fics. I haven't made icons for years, so it was pretty awesome to open up Photoshop again and play around with filters :D There are 17 other wishes that I'd love to fulfill, but I strongly suspect that's not going to happen... I'm pretty happy to have done five though :)

Talking of small presents, Stacia got a birthday package from the Japanese girl she teaches English to, and its packaging was covered with such philosophical jewels as, "A character, noodle GURUMI and a ring, a pierced earring, and a hair ornament also have many tableware, seals, and interesting goods in an apron." and, "Shoes are full also of staitionery, and it and confectionary for cosmetics to a bag." I LOVE JAPANGLISH :D

My mum's arriving tonight, kick-starting the Christmassy activities, so just in case I'm not on here for a while: Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Joyful Yule, etc.! ♥