Gifted Gorgeousness SAL - December

Oh my, I can't believe how late I am with my GGSAL post this time! I was just so busy this month! I had to scroll on Jo's blog for a while before I found the link-up, but I found it! Here it is :)

It's early in the evening on the 23rd here in Germany and I finally seem to be done with (almost) everything! The place has been cleaned, everything is prepared for Christmas eve, (nearly) all my presents are wrapped up (I bought the last one on Thursday) and the Christmas tree is set up now. I spent a lot of time baking and packing boxes full of cookies for my family and friends and I am so happy that I can now just sit on my couch and watch tv.

One more present needs to be finished - a pair of socks for my boyfriends mother, You know those people who don't craft on their own and who think that things can be done in no time? I fear she is one of them. So I spent a lot of time knitting her socks and hardly got any stitching done.
Therefore I only have a little to show:

First up is one last update on my map of Middle Earth for this year.
I went from here:

To here - another 1000 stitches done.

This means I did 11 000 stitches on it this year, I was so much aiming for 12 000, but it didn't happen. For 2018 I might go back to working on this monthly (so taking it out of my normal rotation) and do 1 000 stitches per month.

The second project I worked on is my Candy Cane Santa Stocking - I was doing really well on him, but then the sock-thing came and so the section I was working on is not yet done. I went from here:

To here:

There a quite a lot of color changes in the tree, so it took a while. But most of the missing stitches are just background, so it should stitch up fast (I always seem to say so, but I always take ages).

Unfortunately, this is all I have to show for December. I think my next post will be on 31st December (my end of the year update for WIPocalypse).
In the meantime I hope that all of you will celebrate a wonderful Christmas with your family and friends, I hope you get lots and lots of lovely stitchy presents and even some time to stitch =)

Here is our Christmas Tree for this year:

Happy stitching =)