The Catch-up Christmas Post

Yeah, I know I'm a lazy blogger, and with Christmas come and gone, no one is really all that interested in seeing pictures of the event anymore. We're probably all on Christmas overload. But bear with me, since I feel obligated to talk about it.

I worked a half a day on Christmas eve, and then made the mad dash all over town. One of my coworkers was kind enough to volunteer her husband to play Santa for us and assmeble J's new bike, which is really the only thing that he asked for this year. Bless them for doing this for us! I never would have found the time to do it around here AND keep it a secret.

That freed me up to get all of the other gifts wrapped and under the tree before picking munchkin up from Abuela's house.

He and the nephew came home to find a tree just brimming with presents, and much inspection ensued.

At one point the nephew took a header straight down into a pile of gifts, and required assistance to get out without ripping half of them open. Gotta love the enthusiasm of little boys.

That night, before bed, J had to go outside and sprinkle glittered oatmeal on the lawn. He received this as a goodie at his school Christmas party with a little poem attached that read "Sprinkle on the lawn at night. The moon will make it sparkle bright! As Santa's reindeer fly and roam, this will guide them to your home!" What a cute little idea!


Of course, we left a note for Santa along with cookies and milk, and a bowl of carrots and celery for the reindeer. Can't have enough things to bribe Santa with, I suppose.

Morning arrived, and J was so excited to step out into the living room to find that Santa hadn't forgotten him!


It was a little strange, this being the first year that my parents haven't been here for the holidays. But we made the best of it by making use of Skype to all be together during the gift opening. It wasn't quite the same, but it did work out well, and it was really nice to get to be together in some way.

J loved all of his gifts, but the winner of the day was the Snuggie made for him by Nana. He's been pining for one ever since seeing the commercial for it several months ago, and begging me to order him one. Funny what captures a child's heart. Nana did an amazing job, making his out of dinosaur fleece, and even managing to package it along with the very same identical book light that comes with the 'real' one. Way to go Nana! Despite it being 80 degrees on Christmas day, J stayed snuggled under it for the rest of the day, not even getting up to open the rest of his gifts.



Handmade Christmas was a huge success, I think. Everything received and everything given seemed to be a hit. Of course, there were plenty of purchased gifts for the boys as well, but certainly not the amount as in years past. And the fact that the handmade ones were loved more by J than the store bought ones made me a super-proud Mama.

This post is getting long, so I'll save the handmade recap for another time. I don't know if we'll all agree to do it again this year, but I know that I'm certainly up for trying to keep the tradition up.

Hope everyone's 2009 is off to a great start.

No reason to panic

Do you know how many days we have left until Christmas? 33. Yep... only 33 days left, and how many of my Christmas gifts have I completed? Ummm... 2.

That's not to say that I don't know what I'm making, or don't have the supplies to make what I'm making, because for the most part I do. But where has all the time gone? 33 days to finish everything. It seems impossible! Especially when you take into consideration the fact that I'll need to finish them a week early in order to get them to their recipients on time. Then go ahead and subtract out the days I work, since those are days where I can't possibly pick up a hook, needle, hoop, pair of pliers, or any other craft device. That leaves me about 13 days to actually get everything done.

If I had nails I'd bite them all off.

So, if any of you lovely folks get a small little package from me with an IOU stuck inside, please understand. It's not that I don't love you enough to finish your stuff on time, it's just that I am a horrible procrastinator, and while I've known since (what? February?) that I was going to make you something, I didn't actually start until about October. Forgive me, please?

And just to prove that I really AM working on something, but without giving much away, here are some fairly cryptic pictures.



And J is all excited about helping, too. So much so that he insisted I buy him his own needles and yarn. I'll make him a knitter yet!

After Midnight

It's been a long time since I've stayed up this late willingly. What, you may ask, has me awake at such an odd hour? A surge of craftiness.

Ever since my SIL proposed the hand-made Christmas, I've been almost fiendishly seeking out ideas for things to make. I'm one of those folks that can come up with a million and one great ideas, but never is capable of following through. This year will be different. I'm financially obligated now.

Over the past week or so I've been craft store hunting, thrift store scrounging, and otherwise plotting the creation of goodies for all the good boys and girls on my list. And it's only the beginning of March! See, plenty of time to screw up a few times and still come up with something before the big day.


I'd love to show you some of the stuff I've been working on, but the production has been ridiculously slow for a variety of reasons.

1. My house is rather small and quite overpopulated at the moment. Take 1000 square feet, divide it by three adults, two kids, two dogs, two cats, an aquarium, and all of the stuff that comes along with them, and you've got a disastrously small amount of elbow room.
2. I haven't touched my sewing machine in about 3 years. Everything I ever thought I knew about sewing is filed somewhere deep back behind the place that helps me remember where the munchkin left his favorite spaceship, which cushion the remote is under, back even behind the little wifely GPS that allows me to always know where hubby left his wallet, his keys, and his glasses. We're just getting reacquainted, and the going is slow.
3. Real life seems to get in the way of the things we really WANT to be doing.
4. If I showed you pictures, then Christmas wouldn't be much of a surprise, would it?
5. Besides the crafty Christmas projects, I've also got a major lawn/garden upheaval going on. Plants can't be tucked back in the closet the way that fabric can.
6. I don't have a dedicated room where I can leave my crafty mess laid out and just shut the door. No. Every time I want to work on something I must pull out the necessary supplies, set up the necessary equipment in a way that will not disturb the traffic flow, interfere with the playspace of small children, or appear interesting to two curious cats. Then, after being interrupted for the 100th time in an hour, must pack it all neatly back away. The set up/clean up takes longer than the actual crafting time.
Let's just leave it with this: There is fabric involved. There are beads involved, and there, of course will be yarn involved. What else? Well, that is still to be determined.

And if anyone wants to know what I need and want more than anything else for Christmast this year-- 1000 more square feet!

I must be insane

My super crafty SIL proposed that this year we try a handmade Christmas instead of dealing with the consumerism overload that we dealt with this past year. Now, I'm totally all for it. I love the idea of handmade goodies and they certainly are much more meaningful than anything you can buy in the store. I've already begun deciding what to make everyone, and figured that if I want to even pretend that I'm going to finish on time, I'd better get started NOW. Besides, won't it be lovely when November rolls around and everyone is stressing out and scrambling from one store to the next to get that last lead-painted plastic must-have on their list, to be sitting back, sipping coffee and otherwise being content and finished. Don't worry, I'll only chuckle at you under my breath.

Ever since she proposed the idea, I've been obsessed with finding just the right thing for each person. No generic gifts here! So far my list is going pretty good, and I've got a solid idea of everything I want to do. The problem? Right now I'm feeling incredibly brave-- as if I can take on and master anything, and I'm afraid I may be stepping out of my crafty realm in some areas... even bookmarking crochet patterns *gulp*, and sewing patterns. *bigger gulp* I know for a fact that I wield a hook about as gracefully as an elephant walks a tightrope. And my sewing machine? It's buried under a stack of dog brushes and combs and about 5 years worth of dust in the hall closet.

But I WANT to do these things, and I think I can, given enough time and patience. I've got all the time I need, I'm sure. It's the patience that I usually find myself lacking. And so, if you find me curled up in some dark corner, rocking back and forth and wildly muttering something about seam allowances and jammed up bobbins while trying to slit my wrists with a size J hook, just back away quietly and call the guys with the white coats.

I always start out with the greatest of intents and faith in myself, but I know myself well enough to also realize that I'm going to have some major failures and reassessments before this is all done. But it'll sure be fun to get to play with the sewing machine again now that J's old enough to know not to eat the pins or stick his fingers under the presser foot.