Many years ago, I created a Christmas Collection book for myself. I collected all my ideas for Christmas, my favorite patterns and recipes, and all I needed to make Christmas happen. This book is one of the very few things I’d save, if my house was on fire. It makes me so very happy to flip through that book, because it contains the essence of my Christmas.

This Christmas Collection is not like that, but it is inspired by my personal Christmas book. I have put together a small collection of “hygge”; lovely projects you can relax with during the days (weeks/months) leading up to Christmas. There are patterns for small gifts, and also for decorations and ornaments. Many of these can build up over the years. The Christmas Balls with my grandkids’ names and birth-year are very special to me, to my sons, and of course to my grandkids. They love to find their personal balls and hang them every year.

As I was working on this collection, one wonderful song kept playing in my head. It’s an old Danish song from 1939, and my absolute favorite. You can hear my brother playing that song in the intros to my Christmas episodes on YouTube – it is beautiful! The text talks about the star coming down from heaven; it talks about the hearts, the baskets, balls and birds, and it ends with the house smelling brown and burnt (in the best possible way!! No kitchen-emergencies at Christmas!), which inspired the color of the hat I included. The order of the patterns in this collection doesn’t make much sense, until you know the song. I just couldn’t resist allowing my favorite Christmas song into my Christmas Collection!

If you want to listen to the song, it’s available on YouTube, performed by a famous Danish actor/singer, Poul Reichardt: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvFLlF1YTNM

Merry Christmas, happy holidays and happy knitting!
All the best, Pia.