alisonknits

Had Myself a Merry Little Christmas

Like every year, I struggled through the holiday season, only to have a perfectly lovely holiday.  This year, I was especially blue for most of December, but starting on Saturday, became especially content.

Sunday was my last day at my main church job, and in the couple weeks leading up to my departure, I became rather sad to be going.  But I couldn't have asked for a better last day.  Staff and congregants said nice things about me.  They gave me gifts.  We had a carol sing.  It was lovely.

Last week I had a little pity-party about not getting to host either Thanksgiving or Christmas, and was bummed out that Scott & I were going to make a very quick trip to NYC to spend Christmas day with his family.  I was upset that I wouldn't be able to do many of my own holiday traditions, and was stressed out that we were going to have to drive for 4.5 hours only to turn around and come back the next day so that I could be back at my temp job today.  But in the end, it was all very relaxed, we had a nice time with my in-laws (I have to try and remember more often that I actually like them), and even got to spend some time on Christmas Eve with a friend I rarely get to see.

And, because we're celebrating with my family later this week, I have some extra time to finish the socks I'm knitting for my dad, which I didn't start until last Wednesday.  (In fact, I started them about five times last Wednesday before finding a pattern that I liked and would come out the right size.)

All in all, I'm counting my blessings this Christmas and New Years.  I'm so thankful to have wonderful friends, new opportunities, a fabulous spouse and a loving family.

Happy Boxing Day!

Christmas Meme

Terry posted this meme on her blog, and in the absence of any knitting pictures to show you (hopefully later this week I can show you a Bird in Hand mitten), I thought I go ahead and do it too. 

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags?  I love fancy wrapping paper with elegant designs, and I usually try to buy some of the nice stuff when it goes on sale after Christmas.
2. Real or artificial tree?  Real tree all the way for me.  I've seen some beautiful artificial trees, but my favorite thing about a Christmas tree is the smell.  In fact, one of the things I miss about living in NYC is that after Thanksgiving, vendors sell Christmas trees on the street, and walking past them you get to inhale the wonderful scent of evergreen.
3. When do you put up the tree?  It varies... usually mid-December.  We're doing it this Saturday I think.
4. When do you take it down?  Too late... not until the pine needles are all dried and falling off.
5. Do you like eggnog?  Love it!  I may try to make some from scratch this year.  Anyone have a favorite recipe?
6. Favorite gift received as a child?  When I was around 4 or 5, I got a giant cloth doll named Sally.  She looked sort of like Raggedy Ann, but with black hair, and she was bigger than me.
7. Do you have a nativity scene?  Nope.  I'm not Christian, and celebrate the secular and pre-Christian aspects of the holiday more than the birth of Jesus part.  Although Jesus is pretty cool, he's not my personal savior.
8. Hardest person to buy for?  My dad, hands down.  He doesn't have any hobbies that are really gift-able (we've exhausted the golf-related gift possibilities), and never seems to need anything.  Lately I like to get tickets to something we can do together, like museum passes and that sort of thing.
9. Easiest person to buy for?  I can always come up with many options for the husband, and my sister is always a good recipient of knitted items.
10. Worst Christmas present you ever got?  My grandmother, bless her, used to do all her Christmas shopping at church bazaars and flea markets. and came up with some amazingly tacky knick-knacks for my sister & I.  They had a certain hideous charm in their way, and I look back on them fondly.  But not to the point of wishing I had kept any of them.
11. Mail or email Christmas cards?  If I get around to sending any, mail.  But many years I don't get to it.  I do like sending them, though
12. Favorite Christmas movie?  It's a toss-up between It's a Wonderful Life and A Christmas Story.
13. When do you start shopping for Christmas?  Anywhere between Thanksgiving weekend (online only, I hate crowds) and a few days before Christmas.  Most of it gets done in the last 2 weeks.
14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present?  Not that I recall.
15. Favorite thing to eat on Christmas?  My aunt used to make these things called "Forgotten Kisses."  They are kind of hard to describe, but a recipe is here.  (God bless the internets.)  They're called "forgotten" because you heat up the oven, turn it off, and then leave them in there overnight.  They have an odd texture, they're kind of... squeaky?  Mint-flavored, with chocolate chips (or a single Hershey Kiss in the center, but we used to have them with chocolate chips inside).
16. Clear lights or colored on the tree?  Colored.  But white lights for outside and for the candles in the windows.
17. Favorite Christmas song?  "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" (the original sung by Judy Garland)
18. Travel at Christmas or stay home?  I much prefer to stay home and play host.  But this year we're going to the husband's fam in NY.
19. Can you name all of Santa's Reindeer?  I think so.
20. Angel or star on top of tree?  We have an angel, which was my mom's, but I'd probably prefer a star if I could find a really nice one.
21. Open presents Christmas Eve or morning.  Christmas morning, but we had a tradition when I was growing up (actually, even when I was in college), that we would open one gift on Christmas Eve, which was pajamas.  I loved wearing my new pajamas to bed and waking up in them Christmas morning.  I will definitely carry on that tradition when I have my own kids.
22. Most annoying thing this time of year?  As much as I love Christmas, a lot of things annoy me about this time of year.  Top annoyances for me are the crowds, and the relentlessness of it all.  The assumption that everyone celebrates Christmas, or at least should put up with the holiday pervading everything around us.  The commercialism.  And when "the season" starts before Thanksgiving.  (For example, a local radio station started playing exclusively Christmas music in early November.  I wrote them an e-mail stating that I would miss the classic rock, and that I might not remember to tune my dial back to them on December 26th.)
23. Do you decorate your tree in any theme or color?  Definitely not, it's a hodge-podge of ornaments, old and new.
24. What do you leave for Santa?  Um... pine needles?

Being Where I Am Now

I'm still having a pretty stressful week, but I am taking concrete steps to make things better.  I no longer have five jobs - I have told my temp agency that I'm not going to do the Saturday assignment at the shoe store.  (An assignment which Sara, aka Haydenmumma, accurately decribed as "suckass.")  It doesn't seem worth the couple hundred dollars I would make there to not have a day off until Christmas.

I'm still getting used to my new schedule - today I was almost late to two different jobs, finding myself running down the street sucking figid air into my lungs both this morning and this afternoon.  I'm thinking about ways to keep myself on schedule better.

But to keep my head on straight - and my blood pressure down - I am adding something new to my schedule: a daily meditation practice.  This is something that I've been wanting to do for a long time, and now I need it more than ever.  I was also inspired by Terry's post about creating new habits.  The ironic thing is, I find the more I am in need of meditation, the harder it is to do!  But I will keep trying.

Also, in an effort at frugality this holiday season, I've decided to knit a couple of Christmas gifts.  Kate Gilbert's new Bird in Hand mittens are just too lovely to resist, so I'm knitting them for my sister out of stash.  In the same color as Julia, it turns out.  It's so nice to be knitting colorwork again.

Happy Channukah.  May your days and nights be filled with peace and light.