Bring on Christmas

Published on Friday December 21st, 2007

Drifting Pleats scarf: winging its way across the country.

Christmas in Tallinn stocking: blocking in the tub.

Two pairs of No-Frills Fingerless Mitts: one wrapped and delivered; one awaiting a little fix on a thumb. (Okay, by “little fix” I mean an acceptance that I really did run out of yarn five rounds shy on the last of the four mitts, and that the giftee won’t mind if I substitute a different but related color rather than buying another skein of Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Worsted, and that I know perfectly well that using a mismatched yarn is a better idea than clipping off all the extra inches on all the tails and trying to join them together in a yarn I can’t spit splice.) I’m pretty sure neither of those recipients is interested in knitting enough to read here, so I’ll risk a picture or three:

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(No-Frills Mitts from The Knitting Man(ual), fingerless iteration. LLSW colorway: Baltic Sea – one of my favorites. Prop Master: Mr. Garter. Black and white shot included for extra manliness.) I was only planning to make one pair, and even that was an eleventh-hour addition to the knitting roster when I realized it was my friend Linus’s birthday and he needed some cheering up to offset the sad demise of his ancient VW van and his motorbike in the same week. But they went so fast! And they’re so manly! They’re too big for Mr. G, but all the same he kept borrowing that first pair: a clear sign that a handknit is a winner.

Bias Garter Hat the Second: on the needles as of last night.

Tomtenish Zimmermann slippers: one to be unsewn and made slightly longer; the second requiring three episodes of The West Wing (I never get tired of watching the first three seasons and pining after the fake government of my dreams), or maybe the first disc of Pride and Prejudice.

Stealth husband knit, not to be named: drying in a most interesting manner involving a hammer and the dehumidifier in the stock room at Knit/Purl, the only place I could be sure he wouldn’t open a closet door and find it. And I had my doubts about doubled worsted really drying in a closet anyway.

Today my parents and their dog and my Christmas tree all drive down together from the island, my brother and his lady fly in from New York, and then the flurry of holiday visits and cooking and baking and singing and rumpusing begins in earnest. I’ve been downloading every cookie recipe recommended on every blog I read. I’ve plotted my early morning assault on the grocery store for supplies. I’ve swept up the carpet of wood splinters all over the house that used to be our firewood before the dog moved in. (The remaining kindling looks like it’s been worked over by drunken ineffectual beavers, but I figure it will burn as well as ever on Christmas Eve.) So for now, I’ll leave you with a short list of dorky Christmas facts about me, as long as you promise to reply in kind in the comments.

1. By the age of three, I could sing all the verses of the little-known carol “The Snow Lay on the Ground,” complete with Latin chorus. (I’m not sure I remember all of them today.)

2. I also know the French version of “O Holy Night.” And I’ll maintain that it’s more beautiful in French.

3. My family doesn’t believe in simply barber-poling the lights around the tree like everyone else. We prefer to spend forty-five minutes cantilevered off a stepladder, anally outlining prominent branches in a pleasing architectural manner. For this reason, we also prefer the quirky misshapen natural trees over the carefully molded bottle-brush varieties available commercially.

4. We didn’t leave cookies out for Santa. Because even fictional people ought to adhere to a nutritious diet of whole grains, fruits, and vegetables. He usually got a couple of satsuma oranges. And he always took time to write a thank-you note.

5. It feels a lot more like Christmas Eve if we read aloud Dylan Thomas’s A Child’s Christmas in Wales. My dad does it really well.

6. No presents are opened until everyone is equipped with a pad of paper and a writing implement with which to log their booty and the folks to be thanked for it.

7. We carefully fold up and reuse our wrapping paper. Seriously, some of the sturdier sheets in the useful sizes have probably served six or eight seasons, plus birthdays if they aren’t overtly holiday themed. Needless to say, we frown mightily upon the wanton use of Scotch tape. It was a matter of family awe and pride that my late grandfather could wrap a present with no tape at all, just precision folding and well-judged ribbon placement. Legendary skills, I’m telling you. He’d also make sure everyone was issued a thoroughly antiquated but perfectly maintained pocket knife to slit any unavoidable tape with minimal marring of the paper. There was also this doctrine about using the oils from the sides of your nose as the best possible conditioner for knife blades, but I digress (and di-gross). Anyway, I like to think that I come by my oddities honestly.

Okay, your turn. Show me the dorky holiday traditions and quirks. I know you’ve got ’em.

17 Comments to “Bring on Christmas”

  1. Marsha Comment Says:

    That’s a pretty good list! I’m especially impressed with the low-Scotch-tape usage in your family. I am totally into recycling and minimizing consumption, but I haven’t yet managed to curb my use of tape on packages. Part of me is certainly–absolutely!–that any sizable gap on wrapping seams will result in the package spontaneously bursting open until it’s constrained by a nuclear winter’s worth of tape.

    Happy holidays!

  2. Jillian Comment Says:

    Very nice finished gifts! I’ve got my baking done and my presents wrapped but in my family, we aren’t allowed to use paper. Everything gets tossed into fabric bags with a ribbon drawstring that are used year after year after year. Easiest wrapping ever! Have a great holiday.

  3. Sarah Comment Says:

    Oh, good on you, Jillian! Maybe next year I’ll get my act together and sew up a bunch of those ahead of time – great way to use up scrap fabric, too!

  4. Seanna Lea Comment Says:

    I always save wrapping paper, which led to being gifted packages (because I take a horribly long time unwrapping something to save the paper) wrapped and taped with duct tape.

    My family allowed each of us to open a gift on Christmas Eve. It was always a gift from one of the siblings. We could open our stockings Christmas morning before our parents got up, but nothing else. We didn’t really have many traditions. Yours sound like a lot of fun!

  5. Wendolene Comment Says:

    What fun! A Child’s Christmas in Wales is in my traditions, too: every year, I read that and Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. Always the copies with Trina Schart Hyman’s illustrations!

  6. Laura Comment Says:

    Nice mitts! Haha, that sounds like a compliment from a drunk guy. I just finished a pair this morning.

    the only christmas quirk I can think of immediately is from my mom. she is known the world over for finishing half a gift and wrapping it up with an IOU. I mean, for every occasion and holiday, there are at least three envelopes with pictures of something on her craft table and a note saying she’ll finish it later. I have that tendency, but I do everything I can to avoid it.

    My favorite christmas movie is National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. I could watch it ten times in a row on christmas eve.

  7. Eva Comment Says:

    Our family was split between tape-users and tape-abhorers. My younger sister is famous for her use of tape, which has grown over the years due to my habit of verrryy carrefulllly peeling wrappings apart to avoid ripping the paper — my sister reacted to that by using more tape to frustrate me and MAKE me rip! My mom, however, began our tradition of wrapping things in unusual materials: fabric, old shoeboxes, the funny papers (comics), even t-shirts!

    We always read The Night Before Christmas, and often The Polar Express. We had quite a few children’s books that had to do with Christmas, but those are the family favorites.

  8. Karma Comment Says:

    Sarah, thank you for another noteworthy post. I’m sure that all of your handknits will be very well received! My family also spends an inordinate amount of time plotting out Christmas tree lighting effects. It’s good to know we’re not the only ones… One year, long ago, someone got a “smelly” gift like perfume or bath salts and we all had to pass it around to smell it. My brother, being the joker little brother that he is, poked fun by pretending to smell every single gift he opened after that, remarking that his new wool work socks smelled like strawberries. Every year after that, we always ask, “Did you smell it?” when someone opens their Christmas gift. hee hee.

  9. Karen Comment Says:

    I wish I had done more handmade gifts this year. I am already planning for next year so I can make certain things throughout the year.

    My mother actually IRON’S wrapping paper. Every Christmas after the gifts have been unwrapped we gather up all the paper, and ribbon and bows and tags and put them in specified bags. We have some wrapping paper going back at least fifteen years. My sister has received the same tag on a gift of hers since she was a baby. She’s 33.

    I usually go with a wrapping theme every year. I buy a bunch of tissue paper at the dollar store and ribbon on sale at the fabric store and wrap everything. I also make personal tags and try to find cool things to decorate the gifts with. I used to really be in to scrapbooking so I have a ton of stuff to use to make the tags. This year it’s blue, brown and silver.

    I do LOVE the idea of premade fabric bags to reuse every year. I may have to try that!

    I prefer the bottle brush tree probably because my mom prefers the Charlie Brown tree. My dad puts on the lights and then let’s my mom go to town putting every possible ornament on the tree she can. She prefers colored lights. I’m all about white lights. This year our tree leans a little and I don’t really care. It gives it character. :0)

    My favorite Christmas book to read is Red Ranger Came Calling by Berkeley Breathed who ironically is an Athiest. He is the creator of Bloom County. His Christmas story takes place on Vashon Island near where I live in the greater Seattle area. How someone can turn finding an old fashioned bike with a tree growing around it in to a Christmas story is amazing.

    My favorite Christmas movie is a three way tie between The Family Stone, A Christmas Story and Bridget Jones Diary. Got to love those dysfunctional families!

    My husband has started the tradition of leaving a dirty martini out for santa. He LOVES them and so does Mrs. Clause!

    Happy Christmas!

  10. Martha Comment Says:

    I’m curious about the cookie recipes you found that were recommended. Any chance you might show a list of the links?

    Thanks,
    Martha

  11. kaitlyn Comment Says:

    Yep, we are paper savers too! It literally HURT to watch my cousins blow through paper on Christmas day. There are some really quality pieces that have lasted since my sister and I were little and this tendency plays in heavily when I choose new wrapping paper. If only i could get my new and more immediately family to jump on board…

    happy christmas to you and the menagerie!

  12. mamie Comment Says:

    love those quirky christmas facts. your family sounds like a lovely bunch of entertaining and interesting folks. there are some unique happenings at our home including:
    -running out into our cul-de-sac to greet Santa on his fire engine as he rounds the neighborhood (a practice we have maintained despite all being fully grown ‘adults’….thank god we have the babies this year, now maybe we can avoid those glances that say ‘really? you people again?”)
    -the utter abandon that occurs after we open the first few presents in birth order…with eight children, spouses and two adults, at some point you just say ‘get it done”.
    -it does not feel like christmas to me until i see ‘a christmas stury’ on tv, thanks god tbs is running 24 hours of it today…fra-gee-lay….that is french…haha.

    have a wonderful holiday, sarah, it sounds as if it will be a delight. warm wishes from our family.

  13. Celine Comment Says:

    My family always fled the country for Christmas when I was a kid. My mom would pack small gifts in stockings in her bags, which she would jealously guard until Christmas Eve, when they could come out and each of us would select one gift to open. Christmas morning usually started with presents, and progressed to surfing and laying on a beach (my mother is a professional surfer, so Christms was always somewhere warm).

    This year, both my parents were out of the country, and I was here to spend it with my husband’s family. It was…very different. His parents aren’t together, so there were 3 seperate Christmases to attend, at Grandmother #1’s, Grandmother #2’s, and Dad’s. It was all a little wearing after a while, and all I’m remembering of “Traditions” is that the whole thing was a lot like the Hallmark Card Christmas…everything was traditional, to Grammy’s little ornaments all over every flat surface, to actual-factual Christmas Tea, to having ham and sweet potatoes for Christmas Eve dinner. For the hippie-child-of-surfers-and-sailors, it was a little overwhelming, and I’m kind of glad it’s done, and that Christmas dinner was a little more my speed – husband and I on the couch with homemade pesto pizzas.

  14. Debby Comment Says:

    I hope you had a wonderful Christmas, and all the the knits were finished on time!

    I did a post on Christmas things, and our tradition of hiding important gifts and making the giftee search for clues to their whereabouts. But as to lights, I am with you on the no-barber-pole rule. I wire each limb, and have been known to re-do sections 2 or 3 times until the lights are even. Then there is the annual run to the store to replace the lightstrings that are worn out, before I put them on the tree.

    Happy New Year!

  15. minnie Comment Says:

    1. My favorite Christmas song isn’t even a Christmas song; “St. Stephen’s Day Murders” by Elvis Costello. It’s a riot!

    2. Christmas songs are my favorite to sing, because I was a 2nd soprano in high school, and i ADORE hitting the high notes (and i still can, even though high school was 23 years ago!)

    3. I haven’t made Christmas Cookies since I was a girl. I chose a religion that didn’t celebrate christmas until the age of 25, and never got back into the habit.

    4. I went to Savannah area Georgia for Christmas this year (my brother lives there) and i could so totally see myself celebrating green christmases every year! (i was born in the wrong part of the country!)

    5. Gift bags are the gifts that keep on giving. If i’m giving gifts to the kids, their names are not put on the bags, i just tell who gets what, and i confiscate the bag. I, too, have bags that have lasted 7 or 8 years!

    6. I tend to wait too long to put all the decorations away (not from longing, i’m too freaking lazy!). one year, the outside decorations didn’t come down until after st patrick’s day, because i hate the cold so much.

    7. I try to make a different non-traditional dish every year (i have a culinary arts degree, lol!). this year? since my brother was frying the turkey (which was new to us), i did stove-top stuffing! i did use low-sodium, for my mom, and added sauteed vidalia onions (vidalia isn’t that far from his house!)

    how’s that, lol?

  16. Janine Comment Says:

    Love the man-mitts! I wouldn’t mind making some for my partner, except he’d lose them in a heartbeart. He’s happier with the store-bought gloves that he then cuts the fingers off off, so I save my handknits for his feet instead.

    Happy New Year. 🙂

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