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The Rest of Christmas

Finally, all of the rest of Christmas.

After having our own little Christmas, we headed over to my parents house for most of the traditional Christmas day hoopla.  
 It started out with my sister giving the dogs their stockings.  
 They really love getting new toys.  
 In the middle of the big Christmas day breakfast, while the house was full of people, Samson decided that he needed to sit in the chaise lounge with my sister.  He is a big boy for a lap dog.
 Rachel brought over this wonderful bread that she and her friend had made.  I don't think there is much left, it was really yummy.
 We took a traditional Christmas morning picture with the Rhea family.  My how the group has grown!!  We have such a good time having so many wonderful friends and family over for Christmas breakfast.  My mother's cinnamon rolls are famous throughout the land.  
 For my dad's side of the family I had decided to do a knitted Christmas grab bag.  I made a group of things for the guys (above) and a group of things for the girls (below).  I wrapped each item individually in tissue paper and put them into bags by gender.  Then Christmas evening when it was present time I walked around the room with the bags and let each person draw a gift from the appropriate bag. Then as they all opened them I told everyone to trade amongst themselves until they ended up with the item they really wanted.
 While the guy stuff was basic hats, the women's bag contained 2 cowls, 1 hat and 3 headbands.  The guys stuck with whatever they drew out of the bag, but the women got into the trading after a minute or so of just looking at each other.

 My cousin Alison ended up with the Halvsies cowl, which I think totally fits her style.  The cowl is called Halvsies because it is 2 different textures.  It is half seed stitch and half ribbing so depending on how you wrap it you can get a slightly different look.  
 Stacy got the flower hat, which I hope she loves as much as I do.  It really looks great on her.
Here is my Mimi with the shawl I wove just for her.  :-)  Also, you can see that my Aunt Annette got the grey ribbed cowl in the exchange.  Oh, and that pic on the right is just a gratuitous cuteness pic.  Addy is a ton of fun and adorable.  Anyhow, I had a lot of fun doing this particular set of gifting.  I wanted to make more options for each bag than the number of people, but I totally ran out of time.  Oh well.  I would love to be able to do the same thing on the other side of the family, but we draw names, so it really isn't possible.  It was nice not to have to stress about what each person might want most, but to just pick out a number of patterns and do them up with nice yarn and then watch to see what each person went after.

Fast forward to yesterday morning and we recreated Christmas morning (cinnamon rolls and all) because my brother had made it home.  We exchanged family gifts and had a wonderful time.  All the gifts were lovely and generous.  I have a wonderful family all around.  Soon I will get around to posting pics of the slippers I made for my sister and the apple I quickly knit up for my brother's wife.  Oh and the cowl with hood I whipped up for myself on christmas day and the day after.  It was such a fast knit.

Last night rounded out the christmas festivities with a peirogi (sp?) dinner at my parents.  We only get them once a year because made from scratch they are really a pain in the butt and a mess, but they are yummy.

I hope everyone had a Christmas as lovely as mine.  I am sick now (but I will be fine soon.  I hope.) but I am looking forward to new years.

Comments

Oh my gosh, those dogs could eat my little pup! Looks like a great Christmas!
Knit-O-Matic said…
Newfoundlands are big. My parents have always had them. My dad thinks its nuts that I have 2 tiny (14lb) dogs after growing up with Newfies.
Holly said…
Your family is so lucky! I'm sure they were all very happy with the gorgeous gifts you made for them. Nice work, girl!

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