A Little Story About A Christmas Stocking....Or 4

Once upon a time there was a poor dear boy who started dating a lovely young lady, (I was quite lovely in those days... I wonder what happened)! When Christmas rolled around everyone had a stocking that they hung up to be filled by the jolly old man except for he dear boy. So the lovely young lady decided that this wasn't right and that the dear boy needed a stocking of his own. At first she was going to buy a pair of rubber boots and paint one but this just didn't seem right because it would be hard to pack away between Christmases, so she went to the fabric store and bought some lovely red satin material and made the dear boy a stocking. However, everyone had stockings with their names on it. The dear boy's stocking looked so plain that she just couldn't bare it, so she went to work decorating it.... and it turned out to be really nice. Everyone was jealous of the dear boys stocking. So after Christmas the lovely young lady married the dear boy and moved away from all the jealous people taking the prized stocking with them.
This is what that stocking looks like....

The next year when Christmas rolled around the lovely young lady realized that she had left her stocking behind... a dilema. She went to the fabric store again and bought some more fabric like the material she had bought for Teapot's stocking the year before and made a stocking for herself. It looked like this...

All went well for a few years.... but the lovely young lady was having a baby and the baby was to be born just before Christmas. Now the new baby would need a stocking too... She went to the fabric store and bought some more fabric but it was a little different from the fabric that she had bought for herself and the dear boy. But she persevered and came up with a new stocking, all decorated for the new baby....

The baby turned out to be a little girl and she was very happy with her magical stocking.

It wasn't long before the happy little family found out that there would be another wee baby coming and the lovely young lady decided that once again she would need to make a stocking for the newest baby... Christmas came and went and she didn't make a stocking but then spring came and the baby was born and all thoughts of magical stockings went right out of the lovely young lady's head. Suddenly the Christmas season was there and the lovely young lady was caught with her proverbial pants down.  Here it was Christmas Eve and Santa would soon be here.... no fabric stores were open.... She felt terrible... but she had remembered that somewhere in her box of fabric there was a piece of satin that she had bought when Daughter #1 was born... would it be enough?! She whipped down to the basement of the new house they were living in and rummaged around in the box of fabric that she had dragged right across the country and that the dear boy had been ticked off to move... and there it was, the lovely piece of red satin... But she was worried... would there be enough. She tried the pattern for the stocking up against it and it wouldn't work. She was almost in tears.  She thought that maybe she should give up her stocking for the new baby. Then the dear boy came along and saw her dilemma. They turned the stocking pattern this way and that way, and finally realized that if they turned it a certain way they could get the two halves but the front half would have a big hole in it. Well they were just about to give up when suddenly the lovely young lady got a brilliant idea!  She could cut out the pattern with the big hole in the front and she would decorate it in such a way that she would cover the hole with the decorations.... Aaah! what a relief it was to have such a good idea.

She went to work straight away and when she was finished she had the perfect stocking for Daughter #2 that looked like this.....

And so it came to pass, that the magical stockings produced many delicious and funny things from them over the years at Christmas time and the whole little family was very happy.

Then one year the lovely young lady (who was starting to look like an old hag) and the dear young boy (who had absolutely no resemblance to a fresh faced youth any longer) decided once again to move to a new home... The new home was everything they ever wanted and so they moved. There was only one problem with their new house. It was small. But they had a huge shed where they could store all their Christmas decorations and Christmas things. So they took all the Christmas boxes into the shed to be stored till the following Christmas which was still a few months away.

Christmas rolled around and the young family took their Christmas storage boxes into the house and began to unpack all the fun things at Christmas time, that bring back memories and put a smile on everyone's face. At the bottom of the box stored, in tissue paper, were the magical stockings. The dear wife opened them up....  To hers, and everyone elses horror, they discovered that a mouse had chewed through the box and started eating Daughter #1's magical stocking. There was a great big hole in the stocking (and little black nasties stuck to it that we won't talk about)! Daughter #1 was devastated because her magical stocking was ruined. The mother said she would make a new one but the Daughter was so devastated that she would not have her stocking... the stocking that she had had since she was born, that the good mother said she would find a way to fix it up.

The good mother looked at the wrecked thing and wondered what in the world she could do with it.... Well the first thing she did was put on some rubber gloves and picked off all the little black nasties that were still stuck to it. Then she promptly put it in the hot water wash cycle of her washing machine and washed the hell out of it. Then she had a good look at what was left, since some of the decorations were in a sad state. And so she began. She sewed on new beads. She sewed on new stars. She repainted Daughter #1's real name on it. When the good mother had finished all that, she could not think how to fix the chewed hole. She darned it but it just looked terrible. She decided to decorate over the darned hole as if it had never been there just like she had done on the Daughter #2's stocking when she didn't have enough material. But with what could she decorate the hole?! Meanwhile the pet kitty was playing on the floor with a toy mouse that the good wife had gotten at the pet store and it suddenly dawned on her how to fix the hole.

She had more mice like the one the kitty was playing with... why not have a mouse living in Daughter#1's stocking?! She cut the mouse in half and glued the front half coming out the front of the mouse hole in the stocking. Then she glued a little candy cane to his front paws (that he, no doubt, has stolen from Santa, cheeky little blighter!)  Then she glued the back half as if is coming out the back hole on the back of the stocking. The yellow felt is the door to his little mouse hole. The good wife was very happy with the result and so was Daughter #1! (Sorry to those who are not mouse friendly for this part of the story)!

And so it came to pass that now everyone in the happy little family remembers the year that the mouse chewed a hole through Daughter #1's stocking.... and the little white mouse lives as a reminder of all the good memories that the little family has shared at Christmas over the years.

Merry Christmas to you all from the happy little family including our little white mouse. And may you have many happy Christmas memories too!!

The Holly Green, The Ivy Green, The Prettiest Picture I've Ever Seen

It's up and decorated.... yeah....

I went to town today for a party and I got all fancied up for it... dressed to the nines, make up and all. I never do that you know. But it was loads of fun with good friends and good food and fun gifts. I got homemade soap... and a little bag made from organic cotton... hand spun and all.... it was cool. I was also given a book and some fruit cake and some green tomato chutney.... my goodness it was Santa had landed in my lap.

The roads were gross. Slippery... lots of snow.... and blowing snow, so as a result, bad visibility... again there has been a bad accident that claimed the life of someone we know in recent days.  A young woman died after hitting an oncoming transport truck she left her husband with a 2 year old child... it just wrenches my heart to... well, I'm sure you understand... Every time Teapot and I go on the road this time of the year I worry. So I'm glad to be home tonight safe and sound.

We hope your pre Christmas decorating is filled with happiness.... and always stay safe... if the roads are slippery don't go... it is not worth it to take your life in your hands.

Movie Night And Other Stuff

Daughter #1 decided to postpone her party tonight till a time in January when she is feeling better. She has been sick all week with a sore throat and a head cold and is finally feeling better but thought better of having a bunch of girls over and staying awake until 3 a.m. after such a short time since she has been feeling better. As a result we do not have a bunch of hyper teens here in the house this evening. we have decorating the new tree off and on since I put it up yesterday.... (more about that later).  But as a result Teapot and I decided to have fun watching movies as we usually do on Friday night. tonight choice was the Karate Kid (the new version) and The Expendables. We have not watched the Karate Kid yet. Teapot and the Daughters are watching the end of the Expendables..... I am not. It is a violent disgusting movie and quite frankly they are watching it against my better judgment. It is not worth my time. I can take some pretty bad violence in movie.... I did watch Kill Bill, and enjoyed it but this is just bad. I think it is a little too realistic.  So here I sit ignoring the shooting and loud explosions in the background. But ignore it I will.

Christmas continues in disarray at the Nicholsville farm. The tree.... aah yes, the tree. Teapot picked it up yesterday and I am quite pleased. 7 minutes from the time it came through the door till it was standing in the corner of my living room seems like an awfully good set up time to me.  We have named our tree AElfred (the AE is that Saxon thing).  It is a non-assuming tree and quite polite standing there in the corner and already it grows on me.... I am happy to embrace plastic when it looks this good.  Teapot surprised me today by coming home with a bit of green.... real green. We have a wreath a real one and I'll be honest... the green makes it more like the Christmases of old. At least a tree didn't have to die... it just got pruned. Teapot was in Victoria last week and I was so disappointed when he said that he could have picked Holly for us and brought it home.... this too would have been a treat... but the wreath makes up for it anyway.  One year we had a real sprig of Mistletoe.... and that was nice too. See, these are the kind of treats that are real Christmas gifts.

The garlands are on the railings of the stairwell and the lights are up.... tomorrow there will be the rest of the decorations going up and I will be glad when it is done. Glomitts are coming along nicely and I expect that there will be a scarf started on Sunday.... all is well in Christmas land.... and Murphy and is crew of errant elves (dressed as dust bunnies) have been fed a turkey dinner laced with poppy seeds and unfortunately for them and fortunately for me.... they are out of commission till next year... at least I hope so!

There Are No Christmas Elves.... It's Just Murphy And His Crowd, Incognito

Murphy is at it again. I sat down last night with my Christmas list and realized that I had forgotten a whole family.  This means that I have nine days to knit a pair of Glomitts, a scarf, and weave an afghan! It's a good job I went to lie down last night because I almost fell down when I realized that. So today I started the fifth pair of Glomitts. These are for a boy of 14 years of age. He is a shooter with the JCRs (Junior Canadian Rangers) and he shoots in the championships for the DAR (Daisy Air Rifle) competition. A pair of shooting mittens... this is good. His younger sister is getting a scarf and the wool is in the dye pot as I write. As for the Afghan.... I think I'm going to have an aneurysm.

The Christmas village shelves are now on the floor of the sun room and the Sears outlet has called to say that they don't have room for our tree and could we come pick it up because they are sick of stepping over it! (Sheesh! They only got it this morning). Our Sears outlet is very small. Teapot is going to go and pick it up. (Not the Sears outlet but the tree.) I'm knitting furiously on the Glomitts and forgetting my Cat Bourdhi socks for the time being, (what happened to that miracle?) See what I mean.... Murphy and his crowd of non-elves have moved in and are operating from under the china cabinet in the form of benign dust bunnies.... I knew I should have gotten rid of them weeks ago!

Blogging Has Been Sporadic At Best...

I'm not really sure what is happening with me these days. I've been so down right busy that I don't know my head from my a-- ... well, you get the idea. I finally finished the third pair of Glomitts and got them parceled up and sent off for Christmas along with three other parcels. I'm now finished with getting everything ready to go in the mail... most of it will be late, I have been informed at the post office, so once again I did not beat the clock. I blame it on the fundraiser that called for donations two weeks ago, which took one of my very first pair of Glomitts. (It certainly wasn't my fault when I decided to knit a scarf with not enough silk was it?!)

Speaking of silk... I have decided that everyone on my Christmas list is getting silk socks for Christmas next year.  I began knitting on my Cat Bourdhi socks today and I managed to get the toe done with out buggering anything up.... I'm still a long way from being finished but I think they will be ok. This is the inaugural pair of knitted socks using the Cat Bourdhi method and if the rest goes as well as the toe did then the knitting gods are on my side. (Cat Bourdhi... you rock!) My socks are going to be for me! Now there's a miracle in the making!

My socks are being knit with a space dyed Rideau Arcott (that's wool for you non-spinner types) 2 ply yarn that I spun back in level 1 and have been waiting for the right opportunity to use. This is it. The only thing that I am not so pleased with is the fact that I should be using a set of 3.5 mm dpns (double pointed needles for you non-knitters), and I am using a 2.75 mm set... the knitting is coming out very tight. It will make for a very warm pair of socks, with very little stretch. But I'm ok with that since it might add a little durability to them.

While I feel very relieved that my Glomitt marathon is over I still have two pairs to knit before the 27th. I have a little lee way since the couple that I am knitting them for have gone for a short vacation to the states to visit relatives and won't be back until the 27th.

Christmas is turning out to be the normal fiasco... I thought I had Christmas covered this year with the right gifts gotten or ordered in plenty of time for the big day. But once again the Christmas gods (I wonder if they have anything to do with you know who... I think they are all related to Murphy) have gotten together to play their nasty little Christmas tricks on me... I had decided to order nice gifts from a store that both Teapot and I love in the United States.... and I did so on the 30th of November... I just got notification today that they had shipped my order.....!? " Oh thanks for sending it 10 days before Christmas so that I get it in plenty of time for the big day..."  (are you hearing sarcasm in my voice.....?) Yup, even if there are no more snow falls and the weather doesn't hold anything up, even if some ruddy customs officer who hasn't had enough eggnog gets his hands on it, even if it traveled day and night IT WILL BE A MIRACLE IF I GET IT IN TIME FOR CHRISTMAS. This means that I have one ruddy little gift for Teapot to put under the tree. While everyone else will have tons. (Well maybe not tons.....)Whaaaah! I want to give Teapot nice things for Christmas! It also means that I will have to find the time and the inclination for another long and arduous trip over the snow covered roads to get to the nearest store to find something equally nice to give him so that I don't feel bad for him on Christmas morning opening cards with pictures of the things that he will receive sometime in the future. (It's all about me you know.....) : )

Teapot really is part saint.... (don't laugh mother-in-law).  This same kind of Murphy-finger-in-the-pie fiasco happened a few years ago when I stupidly put all my eggs into one basket and ordered a bunch of stuff from Cabelas and they never called to say that half of the stuff I ordered was on back order.... we were receiving Christmas gifts every few months in the mail until June... (I kid you not!)
Teapot bore it all really well and when I told him today, that I had just received an email saying in effect that his Christmas gifts wouldn't be here until likely a few days after Christmas he just grinned and said, "Christmas in June again?!"  What bugs me most is that I ordered from this crowd (L.L. Bean) because I've never had trouble before with them and this order contains stuff for my parents as well. Argh! Meanwhile I have a bunch of teenagers coming over on Friday night for a sleep over and the Christmas decorations have not made it to the places that they are supposed to be. (As a matter of a fact they are strewn from the Christmas closet to the living room.) 10 days from now this whole thing will be over and once again I'm down to the wire.

No wonder I can't get my head around blogging..... I think I'll go lie down!

I Got An Awesome Hat!!!!

My Secret Santa just sent me an awesome hat... It is warm. It is soft. It is cozy. It is everything a hat should be and I love it.  It looks great on me....... and best of all I love it because it is fun.

See for yourself.....

Great hat!

I could wear it this way.

I could wear it that way!

Well... Maybe not!

This would keep my ears warm?!!!

Henry The 8th...... ?

Maybe if I were the Pope?!!

Henry the 8th with a little height!

What about Mohawk style?!!!

What about bust a gut style?!!!

What about fisherman style..... no eh?!

What about fancy with a roll... ?

In the Too Cool method... I could be a rapper... no... I guess your right.

I look like a duck..... but I could probably carry this look off!!! Quack...

Oh what fun.... I could look like I have a hot water bottle on my head....

I need to go pee!!!!

Perhaps this is best....

Yup this is the way to wear it.....

Hey... this isn't bad either....

Still I liked the Pope best.... or Henry the 8th....

What do you think.... probably that I belong in the mental...

Still Knitting...Blah!

I'm must say that you can overdose on knitting after a while...I have two pairs of Glomitts finished and a scarf that I am working on... here are a couple of pictures...

Slightly blue grey...

Slightly green grey

 

 

 

Knitting from Silk Hankies.

I'm sorry for the quality of pictures (and please don't look at the mess of knitting in the background) but it has been really hard to get a good photo with the computer camera and Teapot won't be home till this afternoon with his camera... maybe I can show better pictures tomorrow.

I am also a part of Canspin and am taking part in the Secret Santa gift exchange so I have made a book mark for my gifty person and I've dyed some Wensleydale fibre for socks and also blended a wool, alpaca, nylon (sparkly stuff) blend for her as well. I'm also gathering together the stuff needed for a friend who lives in New Brunswick to whom I'm send some wool and sari silk blended fibre... I hope they all like these gifts... tomorrow is the last day to get them in the mail and actually get the gifts there in time for Christmas so I am down to the wire.... and working like a fiend... Teapot is home today and I will barely have time to lift my head when he gets here.  But that's what its like this time of the year.... yes?!

After this spurt of energy I will have to get back to the Christmas decorating... Oh and by the way I actually followed through and bought an artificial Christmas tree.... Yes... we are totally embracing the fakeness of the Christmas season and buying a plastic tree.... euuuw! But it can't be helped I will not kill another tree to put lights on it. I just can't do it!


It is a balmy -19 this morning and clear for the first time in three days. We have had snow falling for the last little while and last night was our community light up and Santa Claus parade. We didn't get out to it with my back hurting and then Daughter #1 has a flu... we stayed home.... but we were wishing we could be there. This morning I drove Daughter #2 to school as she had missed the bus and on the way we saw one of the floats.... it was quite spectacular. In the not too distant future I am going to take some pictures of he town square.... it is quite lovely with lights all through the park and the tourist information chalet is decorated to resemble Santa's workshop so you can go right up to the windows and look in on an awesome display. Our town does a lovely job of decorating actually... I'm very proud that HH has such good Christmas spirit... Every year we have a Santa Skate at the arena, the Santa Claus parade and town square light up, not to mention the Christmas craft fair and Santa shuffle, (that's where anyone who wants to can get together in the town square and walk the town to look at the lights of all the houses... usually spontaneous caroling happens along the way... it's quite neat.)

But meanwhile the knitting languishes and I should be working.... I hope you are all getting ready for Christmas with a smile on your face and the sound of silver bells in your heart....