The Holidays with the Little Dudes

In past years, I've spent Christmas with my sister and sister-in-law, but this year was different. They live in Nova Scotia now, and are building their new house, so Christmas this year was spent quietly and quite happily at home with my little family. We didn't get a chance to wish all our friends a Merry Christmas last week, but you know they were thinking it.

It was Malcolm's first Christmas.

"OK Santa, here's my list! Some crinkly balls, a real mouse to chase around, a red fire truck, um, tae kwon do lessons, a blankie with Batman on it, a puppy, some more crinkly balls so I always have a supply when I lose them...oh! And a role in the next James Bond movie! What? Why am I sitting in this warm thing? Mae told me too. She said that when the door closes, I'll able to see stars!"

So he didn't get a real mouse. Or a puppy. Or tae kwon do lessons... Or most of the stuff on the list, but they did get some crinkly balls! And some tasty treats from the vet's office (sssshhhhhh, don't tell them). There may or may not have been an attempt to dress Atticus up as Santa, but he was not in the spirit this year.

"How is that different from any other year?"

Did everyone have a good holiday?

"Oh yeah... Eating and playing on Christmas Day is sooo tiring..."

"Why can't Santa be a girl?"

"Santa's a dude."

"Santa could be a girl."

"Santa's a DUDE."

"Yeah, well you just don't want to think that maybe because it takes so much organizational skills and pre-planning and stuff that Santa would HAVE to be a girl. Let's see you do all of that present-making stuff!"

"I thought Mom was Santa."

"DON'T SAY THAT!!! Santa's real!"

"I didn't say Santa wasn't real. I said maybe Mom was Santa."

"Mom! Gandalf is saying you're fat!"

"I'm confused about this Santa business..."

I know quite a lot of places had a LOT of snow and cold this year - we got rain. Lots of rain and wind. Usually when the barometric pressure drops this time of year, I get a migraine. This time around it blocked my ears and gave me vertigo. I've never had that happen, but I'll take it any day over the headaches.

Oh! And I did knit.

And there's more to St. Aula's second sleeve. Gotta love the power of blocking, because that sleeve sure looks pretty crumpled. As much as I love St. Aula, I'm really not enjoying the process of stranded knitting a 2nd sleeve with 3-ply yarn. Everything is that much bulkier and harder to maneuver. But, it knits up quickly, so who knows how much I'll have done next week. I also worked on Dunadd, which I realize now I didn't photograph...whoops. Now that is some pretty impressive cable work, let me tell you.

Wow, this is my last post of 2009! Where does the time go?! And, this is my 200th post!

Thanks to everyone for reading this year. For all of your encouragement and kind words, I'm very thankful. I've learned more about knitting from my blogger friends than any book could have taught me.

Be safe on New Year's Eve!