Christmas Socks

These two pictures are from Christmases Past. One family's stockings of two missing.

These were added this year. All were made from the pattern A Baker's Dozen Christmas Stockings by Two Old Bags-now out of print-and Rauma Strikkgarn with sizes 1 and 2 needles.

Christmas Knitting

Both of these socks are done. Would you believe I discovered a third "rurr" which I had to duplicate stitch into "purr"?

The slippery socks are done and wrapped.

The last Christmas sock is to the gusset. It won't be ready for Christmas Eve, but it will be ready for our family gift exchange with his family on the 27th.

Christmas Knitting Progress

My Christmas knitting projects I planned were very manageable! At Thanksgiving, Bea's scarf was done.

Rylea's sock was knit, but needed a hanger and blocking. No problem.
Dani's sock was in progress. Still manageable.

Then, the week of Thanksgiving changed my agenda! My grand daughter, Sarah, wants "slippery socks" (Cottage Creations spiral tube socks). Started.

My son, Tim, nearly cried saying, "I'm the only one in our house who doesn't have a stocking with my name on." The yarn arrived yesterday. We'll see what happens.

My grandson-in-law requested slippery socks. I had this yarn in my stash.

The Christmas stockings are all from the book by Wool You Order called, "A Baker's Dozen Christmas Socks". The company changed it's name to Two Old Bags and this pattern is out of print, but Amazing Threads does have it and Borealis had it. I have made these socks for all 9 of my grand children and now the great grand children. I didn't think I'd have to make them for my children!

The "slippery socks" are from Cottage Creations book, "Projects for Community Knitting." All 9 of the grand children have had at least 1 pair-most have had 2 or even more. They were named slippery sock, because they liked to slide across the floors in them.

Christmas Angels

Today we took down our Christmas decorations so I was able to take a picture of the angel who topped our tree this year. We simplified our decorating, so when we put up the tree we didn't unpack all the boxes including the one with our usual topper, but I received this gift from one of my Culver's Knitwits. She said she made them out the "Angels" book, so I'm assuming it is "Angels A Knitter's Dozen" by Gerdine Strong published by XRX. As much as I love to knit lace, I must admit, I've only knit one from this book and to this day it is not put together. The ones I received were put together with a hot glue gun, so there might be hope for mine if I can find all the pieces!

Christmas Memories

While baking Christmas cookies, I was listening to Garrison Keillor's CD, "Now it is Christmas Again" and he said something to the effect that the holidays are a time to gather together family, friends and memories. My "traditional" holiday cookies bring special memories to me. Pictured above are Sally Ann cookies. A few years ago when I was still working, some co-workers and I searched for a cookie recipe like the Aunt Sally cookies we remembered from our youth. (Great big Spam can shaped mollasses cookies with a thick, hard frosting). These cookies were the closest, but I told my co-workers, "but they're not hard." They looked at each other and said Aunt Sally cookies weren't hard. Mine were! Maybe it was a situation similar to the memories my children have of the special, stale potato chips they had at Grandma's house.

I did cut down on my baking this year, but two other cookies I had to make and also with special memories are the Spritz (my grandmother's recipe, but her's were always shaped like "S's") and Working Girl Cookies. The Working Girl cookies use the egg whites left over from the yolks in the Spritz and are essentially a meringue with mint flavored chips. The name comes from the fact that you put them in the oven, turn off the heat and let them sit all day or all night. It is a recipe of my aunt's. I just saw a similar meringue cookie recipe using crushed candy cane. I might try that next year as it is impossible to find the mint flavored chocolate chips.

Christmas Stockings

These are the first four of the nine Christmas stockings I've made for my grandchildren. The pattern is from "Two Old Bags" and has a choice of twelve designs, so the children were able to choose their own. What made it more interesting, I showed them the color card from a Norwegian wool, Strickgarn and let them choose the two colors they wanted. I must admit, I questioned some of the color choices, but they did turn out nicely. As each new grandchild was born, the parents picked out the design and colors so the rest are more traditional. (The picture has the stocking on the steps because they were still too full and heavy to hang on the fireplace.)

Christmas Preparations

Two of our grandsons, ages 5 and 10 were over last night to decorate a gingerbread house. What fun to watch them do it without any supervision. What added to the fun was when they had pretty much finished our son's friend got into it! She confessed she had always wanted to decorate a gingerbread house and never had. Wish I had captured the expression on her face as she worked!

About a week ago our holiday celebrations began with a trip downtown Minneapolis to watch their annual Holidazzle parade. I had never seen it! The weather was perfect that evening-about 40 degrees. The parade is short, only about 1/2 hour of floats, band, and marching units, all decked out in lots of lights. Following the parade, we went to our son's for pizza and watch "The Polar Express", probably one of my favorite Christmas movies. The grandchildren were glued to the set-we had taken them to see the movie when it came out 2 years ago and the had just stared at the screen and didn't budge during the whole movie; even the youngest 3 years old at the time.

The next day, my husband and I went downtown again to Macy's to see the annual holiday display, Mary Poppins, this year. It was fun seeing the scenes with all the props from about the 20's. Then, down to the Mall of America to pick up a couple presents and to see the large gingerbread house. The outside was interesting-don't bother going inside. The outside was made of big squares of gingerbread (my husband thought were cardboard), decorated with pieces of chocolate and hard candies.

We got our Christmas snow today!

Thanksgiving is Over

After a successful (I thought) and fun Thanksgiving with most of my family, the outdoor Christmas tree was lit. I just love it and make myself wait until Thanksgiving to light it. It is so bright, we call it our beacon. Our son has one, too, and we joke that when we both have them lit, we don't need car lights to go from one house to the other-12 miles apart!

The dinner yesterday went real well with planning to make the stress-and me crabby-the day before instead of Thanksgiving Day. The table was set and chairs put around on Wednesday. We cooked and cut up the turkey (we only get breasts) the day before, put the sliced turkey in a cake pan and poured a sauce of 2 c. combination drippings with fat skimmed and broth and 2 Tbsp honey on top so all I had to do was pop it in the oven to warm up. I cooked the turkey in a baking bag I picked up at the grocery store and it cooked up faster and my husband said it was easier to cut and it was real moist. The sweet potatoes and dressing I mixed up the day before so they just had to be heated up. The gravy and vegetables did have to be cooked at the last minute. My son brought his cheesy potatoes, my daughter brought a fruit salad and my sister brought the pies. Thanks to a friend for the turkey precooking instructions and a friend I met in New Orleans at Mardi Gras for the sweet potato recipe. So after a good dinner and an afternoon and evening with family, I was tired! It was a good day!