Did you have a nice weekend? We’re all back at Loopy Central today, refreshed from a few days off at home. College Guy and College Girl are back at school, but the really nice thing about Thanksgiving being so late this year is that they will be home again in just under two weeks, and this time we get to keep them for three weeks.  What a deal!  Here’s a photo of College Girl and her friend St. Louis Guy, enjoying some of their favorite beverage.  I traded them Starbucks for a blog photo. :-) (Have you seen the holiday decorations at Starbucks this year? They’re all about yarn – I love it!)

Can you believe it’s December? Wow. I am SO not done with buying gifts and thinking about Christmas cards, although I did do quite a bit of online shopping over the weekend. I love online shopping for gifts. (And apparently y’all do, too, since we have plenty of orders to get out to you from the weekend.) But December also means a couple of other things around here.  First of all, if you’re a Loopy Groupie, we’ll be sending you the 2009 version of the Romney Ridge Farm sheep-y calendar with your first December order. Many of you have already emailed me to see if you can get another one this year because you have loved the last two years of calendars so much. (Kelly just has a way with writing about her animals that makes you want to take a trip to Maine to visit them, and we’re so happy to partner with her on these calendars.) If we have extras, we may put them up on the website for sale sometime later in January. (And if you make Loopy Groupie status in December, your Welcome Bag will also include this calendar.)

The other thing that comes along with December is our annual Random Acts of Kindness weekly contests. I have to say, our Loopy customers are some of the very kindest people in the world.  I have watched you all come to the aid and encouragement of each other, time and time again over on our Loopy Groupie Group on the Ravelry Board.  There are so many things that have been done out of the kindness of your hearts (and more that are never publicized, but we know about it here at Loopy Central.) In December, we encourage you to do a random act of kindness (or two or three) every week, and then tell us what you did in the blog comments on Friday of each week. If you’re like a lot of people, you probably don’t like telling what you did – it seems more humble to just stay anonymous.  But I want to encourage you to share it with us. So many of the comments last year got people thinking about all of the new and different ways that they could help others, and I know more “acts” were done because you all left your ideas in the comments section.  Each Monday (starting next week, 12/8, and running through Monday, 12/29) we will announce the weekly winner via the Random Number Generator from those who posted the Random Act they did on the previous Friday’s blog.  So in December;

Monday – Friday do a Random Act of Kindess for someone
Friday of that week: leave your comment on Friday’s blog post telling us what you did
Monday: check back on the blog to see if you were the winner
Repeat each week in December.

What will you win? The fun prize in the photo – a skein of Wollmeise Pfefferminz Prinz, a red Loopy ornament, and a sheep-y tape measure dressed up in red socks, just for the occasion. We have 4 sets of these to give away for the four weeks in December. (We know you’re not doing kind acts just for a chance to win this, but we’re hoping that it will entice you to go ahead and share your act of kindness with us as an inspiration to others.) Need some ideas? Check this blog post from last year. (Or other December blog posts from last year.)

In addition to getting your orders out, we’re also working on this week’s Sneak Up today. You can look forward to new Indie Dyer colors, Perchance to Knit, Earthly Hues (including some special holiday colorways), more Prism Merino Mia, Cascade, Malabrigo Sock and some new pattern lines. We’re also expecting so many other fun things in this week or next, so the next couple of weeks will be full of enticements, too!

Sheri almostfinishedmycowl,nowneedtomakethisonenext