Yay! It's Christmas!

by Kathleen

Well, actually it's February... but it's time to recap Christmas.


DH and I alternate families each Christmas and this year it was my family's turn. So we drove the 11 hours up to the snowy north for the four days we had available and drove back.

Worth it!

We left Tuesday night and got as far as Wilkes-Barre where we stopped for the night, leaving the next morning so as to get to my brother's house for the Christmas Eve family celebration.
Back when I was in High School my Mom went back to work as a nurse. (I say back to work, but actually after graduating she took on the job of Mom for about 16 years. This was her first outside the home job.) She worked Christmas day so we started celebrating on Christmas Eve. We continued this as people married, had kids and started their own family Christmas Day.

The adults draw names and my drawee (drawer?) was my brother. I had given some suggestions which included several knitting books and here's what he gave me...
Mason-Dixon, Knitting Outside the Lines; Yarn Harlot, Free Range Knitter; Skolnik and MacDaniels, The Knitting Way. Yay! Fun knitting reading! Patterns! Stories! Laughter! Tears!

Thanks Frank!


I had put in a particular request with my Mom...
She knits/crochets potholders, and they work so well... so I requested those. She made one for just about everyone, but I made out like a bandit... a potholder bandit...
Four potholders! Whoohoo! FOUR! Also I got two really nice bamboo tea towels, a biodegradable plate (still haven't figured out how we're supposed to clean that), and a bar of hand made soap.

Yeah... speaking of soap...
Between gifts and stocking stuffers DH and I got... 5 handmade soaps, 2 commercial soaps and a softsoap.
What are you guys trying to tell us?

I also got a ball of Noro sock yarn in my stocking. I can't show you the ball anymore but I can show you these...
Thank goodness Caroline gifted me with this! I got in the car for the 11 hour drive home and couldn't find where we'd packed my other knitting! I'd worked on a pair of socks that I'd gifted to my sister-in-law and had sock needles handy. And the Noro yarn! Yay! Travel time saved! I'm decreasing down the toe on the second right now.

Thursday we drove a couple hours to my Uncles for Christmas dinner. As always so nice to see everyone... cousins, aunts and uncles, all from my Dad's side. And a delicious dinner.

Friday I went to a knit night with Caroline and my Mom. A good sized group of people who meet at Yarn and Fiber Company store. There was a nice surprise there as well... someone was destashing and bins and bags of yarn were out looking for good homes. I was hestitant to dive in (after all I was a visitor) but I was generously encouraged and I brought a few orphans back with me...
Includes some cones of Classic Elite mohair in various blues, and a couple large cones of some sort of cotton type, and a few other odds and ends.
Yay yarn! Thanks Fiber and Yarn people!

Saturday night we had a most wonderful celebration and the real strong reason we went north (in spite of our limited time off)...
My Mom and Dad celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary.

50!
It was a wonderful dinner with parents, children and grandkids. About 15 all together eating,laughing, toasting, crying... so much love...
Congratulations Mom and Dad. And thank you.

It was at that dinner that I got the best gift of all.
I hadn't shared this before... Now, it's not exactly what it looks like... unless you think it looks like someone who has lost their wedding band down a drain, never to be seen again. In which case that's exactly what it is.
I was washing stage blood out of a costume blouse backstage... it took about 15 minutes of continual scrubbing with soap and dawn and rinsing, and by the time I turned off the water, dried my hands and notice the bareness of the third finger on my left hand... it was too late. It was gone. I think I cried for several days straight.
This was last October.
I told DH that all I really wanted for Christmas was a new ring. Which was fine, but he was working 60+ hours a week and wouldn't have time until after the Holiday. No problem.
Except... he lied. (Well,he prevaricated)
After dinner, sitting at the restaraunt table during toasts he launches into this attempted roast of my forgetfulness and recent trend towards losing things. And then pulls out this box. It's identical. Identical! We got the first one at an antique's store and he found the exact same ring. Only this one fits. It's not going anywhere. Ever.
I think I cried for several days straight.