Until now.

Just look at those POTHOLDERS! Yes, fair isle potholders with traditional Scandinavian Christmas motifs (a Yule Pig! a Yule Buck!) with crocheted edgings! I'm terribly excited by these super-Scandinavian potholders and I have the urge to buy some Rowan Handiknit Cotton right this minute!! Exclamation Mark!

(Sanity? What sanity?)

My gran also sent me various craft kits for Christmas decorations. It's a bit early for me to get crafty but I predict that next Saturday will be spent at the dining table with scissors and superglue. I'll be making kræmmerhuse (stitching not included) and julehjerter whilst scoffing gran's peppernuts and IKEA's pepparkakor. And Dave will be somewhere else because he always bit nervous when I go into full Scandi-Christmas mode.

Unrelated: stay tuned for a finished object. My Byronic Percy Shawl is currently blocking and it's very, very pretty (and very orange).

For fa'en is David's favourite Danish expression, though. He says that swearing in Danish means you don't really swear. Hmm. When I came across this youtube clip explaining the Norwegian swearword Faen, I knew David would get a kick out of it. He did and so will you, I promise.

Afterwards, go to this Metafilter thread for commentary and an insight into Scandinavian neighbourly "love":

"After living in Finland, I just can't take Swedes seriously."

"I mean, Norwegian is, without a doubt, the wussiest of all Nordic languages. Icelandic and Finnish are the two hardest languages, then comes Danish due to its awesome gutturalness, then Swedish, then Norwegian."

"I lived in Iceland where national sports involved remarking on how the Finns are always drunk and how Danish sounds like Icelandic spoken by a retarded sheep. I do firmly believe that both of these are true."