We had a lovely Christmas.  Since a picture is worth 1,000 words, I'll share some photos of the last 3 days.


Project bag for Kate




Materials for bag for Emily

 I finished the sewing on the 22nd.  Pk managed to make my sewing machine function (it worked but not optimally.  It moved slowly.)  The projects were knitting project bags for Kate and Emily.  Kate's had monkeys and Em's had robots.  Both had polka dots.  Inside I put a skein of sock yarn, some Harmony dpns and a Knit kit.  Everything they needed to grab and go.  We also baked more cookies.



flying Christmas cow

 We had a half day on the 23 and finished baking the cookies.  Elanor made a batch of raspberry thumbprints by herself.  (She is NOT a cook).  They are delicious.  On the 24th, I made the babka and the chocolate torte and both came out perfectly.  We decorated the cookies and Pk gets the award for the oddest cookie.  He made the Flying Christmas Cow. 



Cookies!

 We finished the baking and cleaning and I had time to take a nap before Em and Kate got here.  Pk made meatballs and I put them into the crockpot with some sausage and we had cookies and wine punch and eggnog. 



Angel



We ate and talked about Christmas and presents and then decorated the tree.  That's the angel I made years ago from bits and pieces of fabrics.  The white is from the dresses my girls wore in brother's wedding and the lace is from one of Emily's Hallowe'en costumes.  She's been gracing our tree for about 20 years.

Santa came by accompanied by a fire truck all dressed up to look like a Hess truck.  He moved by so quickly I could only get a blurry photo.



The tree


We finished the tree and put the presents underneath and sat around admiring our work.  There's something about the light of a Christmas tree.

Pk and I were awake early Christmas morning and got showered and dressed and were waiting when Em and Jim and Kate and Patrick came over.

We had babka and hot chocolate (in penguin mugs)

And we opened presents.  Emily declared herself the Winner of Christmas because "I made Mom cry first".  She did indeed.  She made what we lovingly call Aunt Joan candy.  My aunt used to melt chocolate and add toasted coconut, nuts or raisins and plop them into small cups.  I was thinking how much I missed them as I was setting the table up for dinner.  Em came in the door and gave me a container filled with candies.  It made me cry to see them. 

But those were the only tears.  We had fun explaining the presents and ooohing over them.  The project bags were a hit as were the handknit socks.  I gave Elanor a Sock of the Month club certificate good for one pair of socks a month for a year.  I got the idea from a woman on ravelry and thought it was a good one.

Everyone went off to spend the day with the other half of their families and we had a quiet afternoon.  I finished one mitten and cast on the second one.  I have small hands so they're a bit long for me but I like them.  The inside doesn't look too bad.  You can see where I forgot to anchor some longish floats.

Oh, and penguinski took on a new look as Emily took various ornaments meant for the tree (we have many penguin ornaments) and secreted them around the house.

Like this one hanging from a rather interesting place.  Pk contends that it's not really penguinski unless you give a penguin to someone that doesn't already belong to them. 

We had a delicious dinner of roast beef with roasted vegetables and talked about the day.

Today was a quiet-sit-around-take-a-nap kind of day.  I straightened up my various project bags in the bedroom and will tackle the mess in the spare room probably tomorrow.  I'd like to get to the spinning wheel but there are boxes of paper and ribbon in the way.  I'm going downstairs to put on a pot of chicken and dumplings.  Mmmm.  Comfort food.

We have no plans until Friday when we're going to Winterthur for the day.  We have a week of potential pajama days. 

So, that was our holiday.  How was yours?