Traditions

Here are some of the Christmas things I am working on:

A pair of 2 needle Norwegian mittens, a vintage pattern found on the internet and adapted to things the way I wanted it. I added a corrugated ribbing cuff because it looked a lot nicer than the cuff the pattern called for which was all stripey, and not in a good way. They are a Christmas gift for Thing 1's teacher. I think she deserves something nice as this is her first year and she is doing a great job. So, I decided to look for a mitten pattern that would not be boring and would take me a little more effort. In my knitter mind, this shows more love and care because I'm not just whipping out any old simple thing. However, in my knitter reality, this usually turns into me getting angry and ending up in tears and wanting to throw the item across the house and my husband saying, "You could just buy her something" which then makes me upset at his insensitivity and misunderstanding of my knitter's pride and then I am in a huff. Ahh, the true spirit of Christmas....it's our little family tradition. However, these mittens will not defeat me-so far they are nice balance of not boring and mostly easy, even though they are a little slow to knit for me because of following a chart that is really old and grainy due to its vintageyness.

Next up, mass produced Sunday School teacher gifts:

Standard Salt Dough ornaments, made with the Things, which will be painted and made pretty some time before Christmas. Of course, this follows our next holiday tradition which consists of mom (aka ME!) finding a nice ornament that she can make together with her daughters, making memories and lovely gifts all at the same time. This then leads to it being WAY more complicated than any instructions could ever possibly tell you, mom doing most if not all of the work, the kids getting up and leaving because they are bored with the project after 5 minutes, and a colossal mess for mom to clean up and mom being all tired, sweaty and again, in a huff (a theme here??). But memories are being made, I tell you!!!! The recipe makes a HUGE batch of dough, I still have half of it left. So, tomorrow, we (read: I, while the kids are at school) will make 50 million more ornaments. These will be to replace the ones we caught on fire yesterday when trying the "bake them in the microwave" directions. Do not try it!! It is a farce! We caught the skirt of an angel on fire-smoke everywhere-NOT a pretty sight...or smell. You know that will be what the girls remember-damn memories. They get you every time.

What special Christmas memories (or "shouldbeforgottens") do YOU have? Share them in the comments!