My big kid opened up the 15th door on her Advent calendar this morning, revealing this message:
It was like being punched in the face by Father Time: only 10 more sleeps, sucka! And you know, and I know, that shit don't get done unless the kids are asleep. And this year, I decided about a month before Christmas that handmade was the way to go for gifts and then dumped most of my Christmas budget into materials for those gifts. Because I am a moron.
I had to take a moment to calm myself, and then reached for my usual solution in such cases: I made a list. Lists are good. It's like accomplishing something without actually having to accomplish anything. As I started writing down what needed to be done vs. what I wanted to get done, I realized that 1)a lot of people are getting coffee and/or wine and 2)I'm a lot more interested in finishing handmade stuff for my kids than I am for the adults in my life this year. Also, I will not be knitting any more gifts until after Christmas. The window of opportunity for doing so passed...oh, about September. I'm working on a really fiddly knit project for the baby, and once I'm done with that...
...on to the sewing machine!
I have a few really excellent ideas that should be do-able in an evening each, and that I already have most of the materials for. I'm not sure that any of them will be truly stand-alone gifts, so I may have some additional things to buy, but at least it shows some thought and effort without me having to tear my hair out.
One thing that I realized was very important to me this year is making the baby's first Christmas ornament. I wasn't making things much when her older sister was born, so I feel a bit guilty putting this at such priority, but there it is: this year, it is the one thing I have to get done. I was really casting about without any set notion of what I would make until I saw a set of beautiful babies over at Mimi Kirchner's blog. How sweet are those? They hit every spot I wanted the ornament to hit: no cribs, no bottles (nothing wrong with either, they're just not something the baby has experienced at all), charming details like felted sweater birds, leaves, and the little knit caps. I'll come up with my own version in the next few days--I'm very excited!
Other "musts" to work on of an evening are some holiday crowns for the girls, a fairy for the tree, and maybe, hopefully, one knit project that I have had in mind for a particular person.
Lest you think that I am stressing out about some kind of twisted Martha Stewart fantasy Christmas (which I kind of am) and not enjoying the delights of the season, I give you a blurry photo of some Hanukkah latkes:
i have no idea if I shaped these correctly (too big? too little?) but they are freaking delicious. Any holiday that features foods cooked in oil is alright by me (and it does: Hanukkah is a celebration of a miracle involving supernaturally long-lived olive oil, so oily foods are the traditional fare). In this case, my older girl requested...no, demanded...that we have some "Hanukkah latkes" this week. She was tipped off about Hanukkah by the electric menorah in the city park, and I think she and her dad read a book about it, because she was running around pretending she was a little girl named "Rachael' while I was cooking them.
She also wants a menorah. I'm not sure I'm going to go that far, but my common sense tells me that if we're a secular family that celebrates Christmas we might as well be a secular family that celebrates Hanukkah. And whatever else...if you have a bead on any holiday with good food, let me know, we'll do it. I am all about cultural awareness, and potatoes cooked in half an inch of oil.
Did I mention the sufganiyot?
Yeah. We'll be making those.