food, crochet, merriment
My daughter, April is being featured over at the Moda Bake Shope this week. Ooooh…she’s such a clever girl.
If you would love to see some beautiful quilting, scoot on over and have a look. Then check out what’s new at her site Prairie Grass Patterns.
You’ll walk away with some lovely patterns…
from her “Positively Perfect” line….
positively free.
Then you’ll be pretty darn clever too!
My-my that smarty-pants must have been raised right.
Heh, heh :}
Every year, in preparation for the holidays there are dozens of sewing bags or craft boxes or piles of yarn strewn throughout the house–so that no matter what else is going on, in the event that there is a spare moment–somewhere, the handmaking can continue, uninterrupted. I love it this way, because these particular hands are just too fidgety and restless to sit still for very long, without some purpose–any purpose.
But something interesting happened this year. There were the same stacks and piles and bags and yarn, all with a certain important project to be finished, but quite often, a little whispery voice would nudge me to just put it down…and so…quite often…I did.
True, the Babushka ornaments will have to wait another year to get their flowers…
the button trees are only partly put together…
the girls’ headbands are nearly finished…nearly…
and the cards never got sent at all.
I couldn’t find the laminating sheets for the nativity set…
and the snowflakes were never hung.
But in the end–there were the same smiles and giggles and hugs that come with the season– even without a few “vital” projects–that no one seemed to miss. And for me, the conscious decision to slow down, and be present and enjoy the moment with those faces I love–
turned out to be the greatest gift of all.
“New Year’s eve is like every other night; there is no pause in the march of the universe, no breathless moment of silence among created things that the passage of another twelve months may be noted; and yet no man has quite the same thoughts this evening that come with the coming of darkness on other nights.”
~Hamilton Wright Mabie
One year, when I was a kid, my Mama gave my sister and I one of these little ornaments. She told us that it reminded her of her Swedish grandmother–whom she loved and missed very much.
She helped me be very proud to have a bit of Swedish in me. She was such a cute little mom.
Sooooo many things remind me of my momma at Christmastime.
One November, many years ago, I made her this for her birthday. It made her cry–I knew it would.
Then there was my funny little dad–I believe I’ve mentioned him before. Can’t you just see that little twinkle in his eye? We use to give him gingerbread ornaments because every year, he would make a million sheets of Honeycake to make into gingerbread houses all over the valley. Many people knew him as the “Gingerbread Man,” and with good reason.
Sooo many things remind me of my dad at Christmastime.
Then one December, I made him this for his birthday–because it was so him. It made him cry–I knew it would.
Soooo many things remind me of them…
at Christmastime.
Oh, we can’t seem to help ourselves. For the last few years, this season pulls us to the Hale Center Theater for another evening of “A Christmas Carol.”
You could say, it’s becoming a holiday family tradition. Hmmm…like the sound of that.
Please forgive the fuzzy photos–it was mostly dark, and you know, we get so excited that we have trouble sitting still.
I can prove it. And this is before we’ve seen any Christmas ghosts.
Lucky for us the incredible main guy–old Scrooge himself–is the same fellow as last year. Funny, scary, sad, adorable–as always and yet…
there are enough new twists and turns to keep us coming back over and over again…
or for the first time.
Keeping family traditions—starting family traditions.
Either way.
It’s a lovely Christmas thing.
Do you have a favorite family tradition?