Second Day of Christmas –well, now the Sixth Day!

Christmas day always has been a day of little knitting – even in the years when I needed to finish an item as a present!

This year was no different, though the day did not feel as hectic as other years have. A lovely, quiet family Christmas morning, and after breakfast a nice restful time looking over and enjoy some of my Christmas present. Then a mad scramble to pick-up enough for the 20-24 that were at our house for Christmas dinner. A bit more picking-up then past years, as one dear friend is now in a wheel chair, and we wanted her to be able to get around everywhere on the first floor (once all the gents safely got her up the front steps!).

It was a lovely dinner, good food (all contribute, in all ways – we don’t do turkey [my dad and I were very tired of it when I was kid, and my mother gave in and started a tradition of having roast beef, etc instead – which my husband was delighted to go along with]. So we did the roast and mashed potatoes, others brought vegetables, wine, deserts and nibbles, and one brings a large roast chicken, as his wife and son don’t “do” red meat. The fun of it now, since this crew has been getting together for Christmas for sixteen to twenty years now, one friend makes the gravy, another carves the meat (much to my husband’s delight, he’s not big on carving), and all help get it out. We eat on our knees, as we don’t all fit at table, and most of the kids are now bigger physically then their parents (13-24 years old now, with the exception of Nathaniel and his sister, who are everyone’s babies now).

Beatrice got a cute little stuffed elephant for Christmas, she’ll get the blanket for her birthday (January 21), which is now top of the knitting queue – I’m just about half-way on it right now.

OOOps And now the sixth day – Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday got caught up in various things – and then --- I GOT SICK! Stomach, and spent most of Thursday night and all of Friday between my bed and bath – you get the picture.

I did do some knitting – I was looking for something, and found the unfinished afghan kit (Cheryl Schaefer) that I’d given to my son’s one godfather and his wife for Christmas LAST year – and felt guilty that it still wasn’t finished – so I’ve been working on that recently – it actually was just the right thing yesterday as I started to feel better. It goes fast, but boy do I find size 11 needles TOO BIG! My hands hurt after awhile. I’m alternating between the afghan and the elephant baby blanket. (which is on size 3s)

More with the New Year. Right now I’m concentrating on getting better. (and dealing with my goddaughter’s house guests – we have four, giggling, 20 somethings in and out from Thursday until Tuesday.) Her mother is laughing her head off at me for “being so dumb as to say yes they could stay here.” Actually, they are all very nice young ladies – it’s just FIVE of them, ‘en mass – ye Gods! Luckily they sleep late, go out a fair amount so it’s not a huge problem . . . . I will also post current photos of the elephants and of the afghan – the colors are wonderful on the afghan – that’s what is so neat about Cheryl Schaefer yarns – the incredible colorways she comes up with – the colorway is Elena Piscopia.

Have a wonderful rest of 2006 – I’ll be back on blog soon in ’07. (with photos)