Christmas loot!

The time leading up to Christmas and New Years is usually very busy and hectic for me because of work and preparations for the holidays. I often don’t have a whole lot of time for winter outdoor trips until things have settled down in the new year, hence the recent lack of snowy trip reports (and the ridiculously warm temperatures we have been experiencing haven’t helped things much). This will be rectified soon, as I am planning a tandem day trip for next weekend. 🙂

In the meantime, I thought I’d show you some of the gifts I received from Santa and family members this past Christmas. Although the first two items (which I have shown previously) weren’t technically Christmas presents, I received them so close to Christmas that I consider them to be such.

Thick wool socks knitted by my grandmother-in-law:

The fantastic crooked knife made for me by OZme, written about here.

Among other things, my Woodsparents gifted me a selection of exotic jerkies/meat sticks:

A bright, multi-function headlight:

And “Bushcraft” by Mors Kochanski (I had owned this book previously, but traded it to someone last year):

From one set of grandparents-in-law, I received this kuksa topped up with liquor- and liqueur-filled candies (it reads “Merry Christmas 2012”):

From the other grandmother-in-law, I received another pair of hand-knit wool socks! 🙂

Word must have gotten around that I needed new gloves, because I also received these thickly lined leather gloves and mittens from my in-laws. I’ve decided to use the gloves for my outdoor activities and the mittens for city doings, since my “bushcraft gloves” are falling apart and I already have “bushcraft mittens”:

The last two items I picked up for myself after Christmas at this quaint little mom-and-pop place called “Ikea”. The first is a stainless-steel cutlery strainer which I have seen used as a hobo stove. I also intend to use it for this purpose, as it is much sturdier than an empty food can. Cost: 4 Euros.

Finally, may I present to you the latest addition to my winter-weather gear. It consists of two faux-fur lamb fleeces sewn together by your’s truly to form a single piece measuring about 6.5 ft/200 cm long. It will be placed on top of the two thin foam sleeping pads I’ve been using. Last winter I tried a real lamb fleece for this purpose and it worked wonderfully. The faux-fur fleeces are only about half as thick, but they both roll up to the same size as a single real fleece and weigh only a fraction of the weight of one real one. Being only half as thick, they won’t work quite as well as the genuine article, but I think they will be good enough. We’ll see! Cost: 2 x 15 Euros.

Last, but not least, was a gift card to Finnish military surplus store Varusteleka from the Woodswife. 🙂

Thanks family and Santa!

Hope you all made out well, too! Happy New Year! 🙂