People who know me well!!

Christmas was so different this year, even from our own little established tradition. Ken and Jenn didn't make it home, but they are every other year, with her family - distance does that. Their gifts came in the mail a day before Christmas Eve.

Instead of decorating the house and having Jim and Andrea (and the 5 kiddos) at our house Christmas Eve, we had to pull out for our winter venture on Christmas Eve morning, so, we filled our little SUV back with packages and headed to their home a few days early. We had a great time, teasing the kids, making them wait awhile for packages, and thoroughly enjoyed each of them with their gifts. Some were on their list and some were random surprises.

Since the tradition was a little unusual, I found myself struggling, I had pulled out 3 decorations to fancy up our craft show a few weeks before Christmas, and hadn't put them away. One was my Christmas tree shape stand that holds plates full of candies and/or cookies. I decided I would do cookies, but we wouldn't or couldn't eat them all, so boxes of cookies were delivered to our favorite Auto Repair shop (he does our tires, brakes, engine work on our used vehicles, and general advice on all of our equipment, he's a super guy and we hoped to bless him.) The hubby delivered the cookies and came home with a Rose for me. I so needed that - was starting to feel a little deprived or something.

At the kids house adults opened their presents. My gifts to our son and d-i-l were a hit, they posed for pictures in their scarves. One woven for our son, knit for our d-i-l.

Then my hubbies gift. I had seen it, and our (almost 3 yr old) granddaughter almost carried it out of it's hiding place a week early when we visited, she couldn't wait for Papaw to see it. A picture of him, holding her, he's about to kiss her on the cheek, she's squinting from the fuzzy beard that's approaching. She's wearing a dress I made here when she first arrived from Guatemala nearly 2 years ago - and holding a doll that has a matching dress The pattern was for an 18 month old, so I made it for her first spring. She just grew into it. The picture is such a treasure it's already hanging in our RV.

I opened my gifts, and was amazed at the thoughtfulness of my d-i-l and son. They went to a yarn shop and picked out a variety of specialty yarns that were over the top amazing. One of them:



This was a little intimidating. Feza Alp Oriental "Bravo" 07 Scarf Kit

Because it is a huge ball of yarn, with several fringe strands attached. The instructions were hand written with a sticky note attached from the store clerks. I tried both scarf patterns and absolutely loved the original pattern. There's probably 20 different yarns in this, two or three yarns wound together, about 16 yards of each color pattern, then the change to 2 or 3 more yarns held together, throughout the piece. Here's a few views of the finished piece wrapped with my denim jacket.



Finished Scarf and close up of some of the fiber.

This is just one of the projects that will come out of the gifts of yarn I received.

The other gift that was so right on with me was a beautiful glass globe hand made from Colorado that had a wildflower bouquet. The center flower was a miniature Daisy. My favorite flower in the world. That's the flowers I had in my wedding, with much strong opinion and dislike floating around ... you don't use daisies for a wedding??? I did!!

There were so many meaningful things happening in our lives and our family's life this year, that the gifts were more like icing on a cake ... we are so blessed and God has been so bountifully good to us in our 42 years for marriage, that just knowing his Grace and Love would have been enough, yet he allowed us to purchase meaningful gifts, receive them too, and spend quality time with family whether it was literally together or over the phone.

I'll close with a sweet memory!




Three Sisters Christmas 1950's