Journal Your Christmas day 32 - notes on a festive season

Happy New Year! I hope you had a nice end to 2015 - we were quiet again, watched a film (Ethan Hawke in "Predestination" - excellent wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff) and ate some rubbish. Happy days! My folks were round for steak pie today and I've been having some thoughts on the Christmas period in general.

(clockwise from top left. Christmas Eve Chookie with my Mum's beautiful tree and Duke, my chocolate pavlova, the first skeleton horse made with her 3D Doodler, Mum and Dad's Christmas Day table, my amaryllis)

We are a house of aetheists. Which I realise makes it seem a bit hypocritical to celebrate a Christian tradition. But I was thinking (doing the washing up, like you do) and before there was Christmas there was the Winter Solstice and Yuletide, celebrating the return of longer days, banishing the dark with song and feasting and basically brightening the darkest days by spending time with family and, yes, gift giving. Now, in the run up to Christmas what Spouse and I (and Chookie, to be honest) were looking forward to most was time off work, hanging out together and eating. And basically something breaking the monotony of this awful run of wet weather we've been having. Sounding all a bit Yule-ish, no? I had coincidentally found myself wishing people a "Cool Yule" in the weeks beforehand, admittedly only because I thought it sounded cute. Now, I'm not planning on converting to Neopaganism any time soon but it pleases me enormously to find my Christmas celebrations have sort of gone back to their roots and come full circle, even if mine have less of The Wild Hunt and more of the hunt for the toffee Quality Street about them. *g*

I'll leave my Christmas journalling this year with a photo of my incredibly grown-up looking Chook. She's at this weird age where sometimes she still looks like a little girl and in the next five minutes looks about 16. The last couple of days have found me priming and assembling her collectors dollhouse, I am positively humfy backit* with painting and glueing but it's been fun all the same and looking really cool. Three more fun-filled days before the back to work gloom sets in, I intend to make the very most of it!

* hunchbacked. Your Scottish lesson for the day.

Journal Your Christmas day 28 - the wooly hats!

Today is my Dad's birthday and today I should be showing you a picture of his socks (and Spouse's who had to have a pair after trying Dad's on for size to help me out.) Of course, I forgot to take photos before gifting them earlier today. Whoops! So here's the rest of my Christmas makes.

Wooly hat number 1 - the bunny for my brother. The scarf buttons up neatly like a neck warmer, I found the pattern on Ravelry. 

Wooly hat number 2 - the fox for my sister-in-law. Her nickname is Vixen so what else could she have?! *g* The infinity scarf is fleece backed foxy double gauze, soft and cosy! 

Wooly hat number 3 - the panda for my mum. When I saw this panda snowmen fabric I knew Mum's dog walking hat was going to be this guy. Isn't he cute?

My aunt and uncle's bauble table square. I love that fabric with the cars!!

And six cake-in-a-mug sets for my girlfriends.

Two each of these mugrugs made with raw edge applique.  I giggled all the while making the moustache trees!

Now if you'll excuse me I have a sewing room to put back in order, it becomes the Chrimbo staging area and is upside down!

Yarny deets:

All hats from the book "Animal Hats" by Vanessa Mooncie

Rabbit:

Yarn: King Cole Magnum Chunky in sandstone and pink haze

Needles: 6.5mm single point

Fox:

Yarn: Debbie Bliss Rialto chunky in rust and ecru, ear backs are Debbie Bliss Angel (doubled) in black

Needles: 7mm single point

Panda:

Yarn: Wendy Mode chunky in vanilla and coal

Needles: 7mm single point

Journal Your Christmas day 27 - Christmas Minis

So, all my friends and lots of people on Instagram know the story of this quilt but I couldn't share it here before Christmas because family reads my blog. But the big day being past and the quilt being happily received I can finally reveal my biggest Chrimbo make.

In the last week of November I asked my Mum what on earth I could give my Dad for his Christmas. His birthday is December 28th but I had a plan for that - I was stumped over a Christmas gift, though. When she said she knew just the thing I was delighted thinking he'd seen a shirt or smelled an aftershave or something. "He's always saying, 'everyone's got a throw except me.'" she said. Yes, I was going to have to make him a quilt. 

So the stash was raided and I only needed to buy three or four fat quarters to make a stack big enough to use. Excellent!

And after an evening perusing patterns I plumped for a disappearing 9 patch variation.  You make two different colourways (one with white in the corners and one with blue) and when you cut them apart like in a normal d9p you put them back together with 2 opposite corners the same from each colourway. Without turning them. Does that make sense? I couldn't find a tutorial for it but figured it out from a photo. This is the two variations of colour placement, I made 10 of each.

You get this complicated looking grid pattern which is really easy peasy to do. And, more importantly for me, quick!

I backed it with brushed cotton for maximum snuggelage! The quilting is simple straight lines also to help in the snuggles department. It doesn't hurt that it's quick to do, either!

And I bound with a cracking diagonal stripe from Sweetwater's "Holly's Tree Farm" range - ho ho ho, how serendipitous (Holly being my Chook!) This is the first time I've been totally happy with a machine binding - and it SO much faster. Although when I have the time I do enjoy hand stitching binding.

I started cutting this on a Sunday evening and finished binding the following Monday.  And two nights during the week were spent at Muckhart Quilters and Chook's Christmas concert. It really is a fast, satisfying pattern to do and I love that grid pattern it gives you. Dad was chuffed with it, too, which is really the important thing, I snuck in a wee red mini in the bottom corner since he has one. Job done!

Journal Your Christmas day 26 - Boxing Day

(Small note for clarity. Journalling is from 10am, photos from the 2pm performance, publishing at teatime!)

When Spouse and I were first married, the day after Christmas was where our two families really had a clash of traditions. His family did Christmas Day all over again; if they'd been at home on the 25th, Boxing Day would be spent at his Gran's having another turkey dinner. Whereas my lot spent the day in jammies eating leftovers and chocolates, playing with presents and not leaving the house. We tried it each other's ways and neither of us liked it. So we made our own tradition.

I think Chook was about 5 the first time we went to a Boxing Day pantomime. It was up in Edinburgh and although it was great, the travelling meant it was a fairly early start leaving the house (far too early for me on jammie day - about 10am) but it was a moderate success. The next year we were more savvy and got tickets for our local panto - and it was perfect! The show itself was fabulous, the matinee meant it wasn't an early start and we were back in the house for teatime AND it got us out of the house. So we've done it every year since. Well, that's a slight lie - the last 3 years were spent with the Hobbit films (Chook was reading it at school when the first one came out) but the principal was the same.

So today we're swimming with "the Little Mermaid" at 2pm but before that I have to pop out for milk and visit my Wee Granny. Lunch is a turkey sammich (we ate at Mum's yesterday but cooked our own bird for leftovers!) and we've a huge choice of sweeties we can take. The laundry's on already (some things stop for no holidays) but I'm still in my jammies. This is now our Boxing Day!

Journal Your Christmas day 25 - Christmas Day 2015

And that's us all done for another year!And for the first time ever we didn't have to go and wake Chook in the morning! Ten to eight she toddled through herself - we couldn't believe it, we always have to get her up at about half eight when we can't wait anymore! 

I didn't take many photos today but here's what I do have. We had a bit of crafting courtesy of Chookie's 3D doodle pen. It's kinda like a hot glue gun but extrudes plastic! I guess like a crafty/low tech 3D printer. It's very cool. 

Lots of lovely gifts given and received. That's Spouse is his socks (he wants many more pairs!!) my crazy expensive watch (thank you, darling) and my brother in his hat and scarf from us (wearing last Christmas' socks!). I'll share the hats, scarves and quilts I made another day!

A bit of chillaxing before heading out to lunch at my folks'. Wee Temple was a bit anxious all morning, he's such a wee emotional barometer that he picks up on any differences in atmosphere. Bless him, the excitement and extra things all over his house were making him a bit twitchy. But he managed not to pee on anything (we still get the odd spraying episode despite being 3 months clear at one point!) and the detritus is mostly all away now. Poor wee neurotic guy. *g*

Fun with family (this is Chook and my baby brother) including an impromptu karaoke session! I'm not sure how it happened but a discussion about what was number 1 when we were born, a search on YouTube for the songs and an accidental discovery of a karaoke "Mull of Kintyre" found us 2 hours later still scaring the dog. Sorry, Duke! 

(I've just said "say cheese!" and he is pointing at her glass and quipping "That's no cheese, that's a prawn cocktail." Which it was. Giggles ensued from the pair of them)

And lots of fabulous food including amazing homebaking by my mum. I couldn't do it justice, I was so stuffed with prawns and salmon and Dad's homemade soup, turkey and Mum's trademark cheesecake. Big. Fat. Belly.

I'm knackered now and we're off to the panto tomorrow so it's bedtime for me. I do hope you all had as wonderful a day as we did!

Journal Your Christmas day 24 - the bauble box

Bath? Done. Elf brought jammies? On. Christmas Eve bauble box? Open. Treasure hunt? Solved. Gift at the end?

A Go-pro camera for all sorts of horse riding, bike riding, fish swimming filming fun!!

Here's the big moment. That's not quite a jaw drop at the end but pretty close. Heh heh.

Dad helping check it out. I'm not sure who was more excited!

She was showing me videos on YouTube a few weeks ago of horseriders with helmetcams and I took the idea and ran with it. I love when we can surprise her like this!!

The presents are out, everyone is clean and fed (cats included) and the big exhale is happening.

That's me off to bed, now.  Hope Santa is good to you, no peeking or he won't come!

Journal Your Christmas day 23 - stockings

When I was a kid I didn't have a Christmas stocking. I mean, we hung a sock on the mantelpiece for Santa on Christmas Eve (I often borrowed a football sock from my brother coz they were bigger than my ankle socks!) but there were no dedicated stockings with names on. I always had the left hand side of the fireplace, he had the right and our presents were piled up underneath accordingly.

When Chook had her first Christmas when she was 6 months old my work mate and friend gave her a stocking of her own. She even embroidered her name on it - that's it in the middle here, still getting used today. 

But it wasn't until 2 years ago that I made Spouse his own. And then, feeling left out, I made one for myself. We don't have a mantelpiece but it's become tradition (in this house at least) to hang them on our radiator cover beside our tree. Chook's presents get piled in front of them, Spouse and I usually have a small pile each by the couch and armchair. Sort of tradition by furniture necessity. *g*

Two more sleeps!! I've just wrapped all Chook's stuff and I am officially ready for the man in red. Yaas! 

Journal Your Christmas day 22 - warming the cockles

The socks are done!!!! All the yays and whoops and happy dances are being done by me right now. So I think I've just got Chook's to wrap and I am finished. Marvellous.

Chook and I got an amazing parcel from our friend (and American Mama) Dolores today.

I got mental amounts of fabric and it has fired my enthusiasm to get a new quilt going. More on that on the new year.

Jones approves,  too. *tuts*

And amongst other things (the coolest phone pouch and baritone Christmas music!) Chook got this tree skirt. Isn't it perfect? It's hand quilted and everything. I must make one for my own tree, I love how it looks.

Thank you dear heart and the lovely Maria, too. It fair made my wee heart swell with Christmas spirit.

I even had a lovely, lovely lady at a perfume counter today help me pick out aftershave for Spouse. She was great and what might have taken me alone aaaaages took about 5 minutes. It's all coming together beautifully and I've only a day and a half still to work. Awesome! 

Journal Your Christmas day 21 - reality checking

So with 4 sleeps to go I'm having a quick squizz round the house to see if we're getting it together in time. And I think we're pretty good (Spouse's socks notwithstanding)

The Big Christmas Clean happened yesterday and my wine glasses are sparkly clean on their shelf. Months go between uses for them and they're right above the cooker so they get greasy.  Not today! In fact,  Spouse bleached the whole kitchen yesterday so it is squeaky clean.

And in the wee room here is what is left of the presents - 15 of them have already been gifted. Chook's are still to be wrapped but I think we're well on track! 

I must find a decent noise reduction filter for my phone - these dark days are terrible for photos! I could import them to my tower and PSE but it would be so much easier (and quicker!) to be able to do it in situ. Any suggestions? 

Journal Your Christmas day 20 - giftage

I really did think I was all finished. And then on Thursday evening (8 sleeps to go) Spouse announced what would be a marvellous gift would be some hand knitted socks. Awesome.

So on Saturday morning (ie: yesterday) I was in town at 9am to beat the crowds buying 2 balls of Knitcol yarn and the rest of the day was spent knitting furiously. This is where we were at 9am this morning.  I've finished one since then and cast on its mate. I won't get any done during work time like I usually would at this time of year - we are surprisingly busy. But I have evenings and lunch hours. The last one took about 8 hours. That's doable, right? RIGHT?! 

Journal Your Christmas day 19 - Santa

I have no idea when I stopped believing in Santa* but I'm guessing I was around 9 or 10. I DO know I was still a firm believer the winter I was 7.

My brother was born in December when I was 7 and a half and I remember one day asking my Mum what Santa was bringing for the baby. She gently told me that he probably wouldn't bring him anything, what with the only being 2 weeks old and everything. Well 7 year old me was horrified and told her in no uncertain terms that it didn't matter he was a tiny baby and Santa would of course bring him something. And, natch, come Christmas morning there were parcels for him to open from the big man.

 It was years later I found out Mum had gone into town to our Co-Op (the department store) to buy some Fisher Price baby toys to wrap up because I'd been so sure that Santa wouldn't forget Grant. Like she had nothing better to be doing in that awful winter of '81 with a fortnight old baby! All to preserve my beliefs and keep Santa alive a wee bit longer for me.

* I also have no idea why this didn't publish on Saturday night like it was supposed to. How incredibly annoying...

Journal Your Christmas day 18 - dinnertime

This is a page out of my Christmas scrapbook from 2005 (although the photos are from 2003)

 It reads "for me, Christmas dinner is about turkey and bread sauce, cranberry jelly and chipolatas, crispy roasters and my annual Brussels sprout (evil veg!!). And for the full childhood revisited experience, you need to have Jim carving the turkey with his big ol' knife and sharpening thingie."

Not much has changed - obviously that wee girl is a lot bigger and Papa (Jim) and Wee Granny don't make it to the table these days. But I do still love roasters and cranberry jelly! Although I do find it's less about the food these days and more about the company. We're going to my Mum and Dad's this year, joined by my Bro and his lovely wife and I suspect their two doggies. So 7 hoomins and 3 pups and 1 turkey.  Sounds marvellous!! 

Journal Your Christmas day 17 - done!

I am rather surprised to be so well organised today - for a while there at the start of the month I was slightly panicky about things being ready for Santa. But the makes are all done including two birthdays! My brother's guitar strap I showed last week, this is the jewellery I made for his wife. 

The chain was made by wiring loads of smokey round and red agate nuggets onto little cuts of wire and fastening them all together. Then the big agate connector was hooked in and the whole lot wound with leather and then dotted with little peach moonstone dangles. 

Kumihimo made the base for the bracelet but instead of wire the agates were threaded onto waxed Irish linen cord. The magnetic fastenings are glued in with a textile glue I have and they are going nowhere! I also whipped up a little ring to match.

Here they are together - sis-in-law likes orange!

So I have one birthday to finish (my dad's) but I've a bit of time for that yet. 10 days or so. And there's not much left on my to-do list.

Wrap Chook's presents.

Clean the house.

A spot of baking maybe?

I even picked up pet gifts today and everything else is wrapped and ready to go. So much so that I sewed a skirt earlier in the week! It helps that our turkey dinner isn't at our house this year (hullo, Mum! *waves*) so there's no food to plan. What a great feeling!! How 'bout you? Done yet? Or done in...

Journal Your Christmas day 16 - make love your goal

Christmas songs are a funny thing. Have you noticed how many old favourites don't actually have Christmas mentioned in them? It's a bit like films - the Great Escape is very much a festive film in my eyes but that's only because it's always ON at Christmas, not because Steve McQueen is escaping the camp riding Rudolf  (that would have had a quite different ending, no? *g*) The other one is Die Hard. It's set at Christmas so therefore, in my eyes at least, it is a Christmas film. I know that's controversial. Heh. 

Anyways, back to music. I have three firm festive favourites and only one references Christmas and it's a protest song about war! What else could it be but the wonderful "Stop the Cavalry" by Jona Lewie. (clickety click here for video!) I love singing those trumpety brass parts.

Second on my list isn't a Christmas song but is at least winter themed. The 60'S were a great decade for yuletide songs - the Beach Boys "Little Saint Nick" (run, run reindeeeeeer! ) and Chuck Berry's "Run, Run Rudolf" being two other top tunes for me. But they are all beaten into touch by the squeal inducing "Sleigh Ride" by the Ronettes. (clickety clicksville) I mean, when did "ring-a-ling-alinga ding dong ding" ever sound anything other than ridiculous? And they make it just perfect.

Bringing me to my favourite. Which, again, is not a Christmas song. Or wintery. Or anything remotely seasonal. But it was number 1 just before Christmas (31 years ago!) and has a video re-enacting a traditional nativity so is very much a part of festive tradition and always pops up in Christmas song countdowns. Of course, it's the seminal "Power of Love" by those surprising Nöel stalwarts Frankie Goes to Hollywood. (click)

I was 10 when this hit the top of the charts and I vividly remember them being on Top of the Pops and my mum singing along. I was mesmerised by that video (good old Godley & Creme) and the musicality of the song. It was much later - nearly 20 years - before I really listened to the lyrics while nursing a fretting baby. And, like a lot of songs since motherhood, it took on a whole new meaning. It's a very me refrain, particularly the last spoken lines

I'll protect you from the hooded claw,

keep the vampires from your door.

So c'mon then. Fave Chrimbo tune? I see the numbers, I know you're out there! 

Journal Your Christmas day 15 - deck the halls

Fa la la la la, la la la la. *g* I don't go nuts at Christmas with extra decorations - mostly for reasons of furry sabotage. But I do have a few things that go out every year along with the tree. 

This is how Chook's special bauble tree is looking this year. My Mum started buying her a tree dec when she was 6 months old and we've kept up the tradition. Everything has a nod to what was important to her in any given year - up to and including the cheesy AF glittery chihuahua in a stiletto that she chose herself when she was 6. It is truly hideous. The tree's filling up beautifully, though! It's also always accompanied by my Christmas scrapbook. I'm slightly hopeful to this year get a layout in it other than the "Christmas Eve bauble box" one that I do every year. We shall see! 

The Christmas Minnie Mouses are always displayed. Another tradition from my Mum and bought from the Disney Store - we do also have a Pascal (from Tangled) and Daisy Duck and Stitch on a different table. Our stockings are at least still near a heat source! The lack of a fireplace only bugs me at Christmas, you can't beat a nice mantle display!

The other bit of decorating I always do is my kitchen dresser. It's nothing major, just some precious breakable baubles that don't go on the tree (although the furries have largely ignored it this year. They had such fun last year batting off the felt ornaments and playing pawball with them - I was still finding them in hidden places upstairs at Easter!) and some festive crockery. 

The Santa countdown (yes, I took these photos at the weekend when it was daylight! I thought I might need them for a prompt this week) and little houses and baubles were gifts from my Mum over the years. Some from Cologne, some from various Christmas fayres - there is a heavy emphasis on holly printed things and green!

And, of course, I have two Christmas quilts that get fished out. I do love a good festive textile! I could use more cushions - that's definitely something to bear in mind during the year when I need a little sewing action!

Journal Your Christmas day 14 - the places we'll go

One major reason I still live in my home town is my family are all still here. My folks, my brother, my Grandparents - all walking distance from each other. It means at Christmas there's no travelling to be done and every Christmas Eve has seen me in my own bed. But we have a few wee things we like to do over the festive season like always going to see a pantomime or having a drive round looking at all the lights.

The last few years I've really missed seeing Chook in a nativity or some other Christmas show. So it was with great delight this year that we all trotted out at the beginning of the month to watch one of her bands playing. She's in the school instrumental group (they're performing at local nursing homes this week), the brand new local youth brass band and HMFY, the local branch of Music for Youth. It was the HMFY concert we were at, Chook is in the training band.

It was brilliant. A mix of Christmas and not-so music but all with a wintery feel. Our biggest laugh was when Chook's mentor (who plays the euphonium) flicked a hidden switch halfway through a number and his instrument lit up like a Christmas tree. He had wound little battery operated lights through his tinsel decorated tubes and valves! It's such a great experience for her, she's getting more confident all the time and I just LOVE all the music. 

Journal Your Christmas day 13 - weather

The last white Christmas I remember (with actual snow covering the ground) was that memorable December of 2010. I hadn't seen snow like it since childhood - there actually wasn't much of it but it froze solid and lasted weeks and weeks. I know we had one other when Chook was a toddler because you can see it in the background of our photos of our dining table at Christmas dinner but they are actually pretty rare round these parts.

It's been really mild this year but so, SO wet. I never did get my grass its last cut of the year coz it just seems to have heen raining constantly since October! But today? It was -3C first thing and we had a really good, hard frost.

It didn't bother Temple much. He likes to patrol the garden regardless of the weather and was out for hours. His ears were freezing when he eventually shouted to be let in.

But Jones? He is a much more fair-weather cat. He wasn't sure what to make of the crispy grass at all and was bounding like a gazelle trying to touch it as little as possible. Five minutes and he was yowling to get back into the warmth.

It makes for a very pretty garden, though.

And the chances of a white Christmas this year? Apparently Edinburgh Castle is sitting at 5/2 odds so maybes!