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It's Holiday Time!

Christmas is my husband's favorite time of year. Though I've always enjoyed the holidays, too, I find that I look forward to the festivities even more now that I'm with someone who is so enthusiastic about the holiday season. In recent years, we've cultivated a few traditions as the nature of our holiday celebration has evolved: first, we started to have an actual* christmas tree ever since we moved into an apartment that's big enough to accommodate such a thing. We also like to get an advent calendar of some sort - the cheapie 99-cent calendars from Trader Joe's have fit the bill in years past, but this year, we have a really cool advent candle that I got on clearance last year. Finally, I knit all of us stockings last year since it was the first time we'd be spending the holiday proper in Chicago, and we upheld the Ritter tradition of shopping for stocking stuffers on Christmas Eve.

The most important tradition, however, is heading downtown for the Christkindlmarket. Usually we make a point to go at least once or twice between Thanksgiving and Christmas, but last year, we took to going every week...a tradition we intend to enforce this year as well! 

What's not to love? Hot spiced wine that you drink from a boot, tasty bavarian pretzels, and plenty of holiday cheer...















ETA: I should probably remind you that it's the last day of the Craftsy Holiday Sale! There are awesome yarn deals and all Craftsy classes are $19.99 or less...but only til midnight tonight!

*actually, we have to have an artificial tree, since I'm allergic to pine.

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