Security Blanket

I am grateful to the sweater currently on my needles.  Not because it keeps me warm while I knit it, though it does.  Not because it's an absolute delight, though it is.  Just because the holidays would be harder to handle this year without something pleasant on which it is possible to make visible progress, and bulky yarn is freaking genius at making you feel like you've actually gotten somewhere. 

For some reason December inflates existing aggravations.  It's a wonder anyone has room for Christmas trees or menorahs or snowmen, for that matter.  There's so much bloated drama taking up our mind-space this time of year, from last year's disastrous holiday visit with the family to the thing your boss said last week that made you want to change jobs, which is of course impossible this time of year, and what the hell are you doing with your life anyway that you're stuck in this job that is clearly headed straight down the toilet.  I think there's something about yet another waning year--plus all the various holidays that require us to have Very Special Times nearly hourly for the better part of six weeks, whether we feel like it or not--that makes all of the little setbacks feel...well, not so little.  If you're anything like me, you have by now accomplished things you never thought you'd manage, and also failed to do some things you really thought would be ticked off the list by now.  Those unchecked boxes rankle a little extra as the weather gets colder, and I find that they do start to crowd out the year's successes if I'm not careful. 

A fabulous sweater in bulky weight alpaca, however, makes absolutely no effort to conceal any of the inches churned out in its creation.  Its cables do not hide behind unsent letters and they do not pale in comparison to the Fair Isle your friends from college made this year.  They are indefatigably solid and proof that something has been accomplished.  Perhaps, too, they remind us that--with the exception of that project at the back of the stash bin, which is a totally separate case altogether and it's probably best to just not talk about it--very few things remain in progress forever.  Eventually, we either finish or we frog the project and use the yarn for something else.  The sleeve we picked up to knit when we sat down to watch Castle (or Downton Abbey, or Leverage, or Doctor Who, pick your poison) is materially different than the sleeve we have by the time we hit the end credits.    That's something.

Maybe not a lot.  Maybe not enough.  But maybe enough to keep us from taking to the streets in a furious rampage of end-of-the-year crankiness, and that makes the holidays a little happier for everyone.