a holly jolly christmas

I hope everyone is recovering from the Christmas/Hanukah blitz and getting ready for New Year’s! My Christmas week was busy, but really good. Actual knitting content is at the end, in case you want to scroll down . . . I promise.

Friday night after work, my friend (Zokni girl), her mom, and I jumped into the car and drove to Maryland. (I so very much need a nickname for her that makes sense. I’m tempted to use “Laura” (not her name, but appropriate), but there are too many other Lauras I might be talking about. I’ll think of something eventually.) We sang along with the Christmas songs on the radio and had a delightful time, despite the rain.

On Saturday I met up with Lolly for a nice long afternoon of knitting. In all we spent 4 hours together, and there was never a lull in the conversation. We talked about the intricacies of blog statistics, “celebrity” bloggers, books, New York, life in general, and more. It was sheer delight. I worked on a pair of socks for my friend EB (I don’t want to blog about them until I’ve resolved the heel), and she worked on the socks for Kris that she recently blogged about. We were too caught up in the intense talking to think to take a picture, bad bloggers that we are. Next time.

The rest of the weekend was a blur of seeing old friends (one I hadn’t seen in 10+ years), eating good food, and cooking, cooking, cooking. Christmas day, after opening our gifts, my mom and I went directly into the kitchen and didn’t surface until my friend (yes, her again. still no nickname.) and her family came over for an extensive, many-hours-long meal. Traditionally, we get together on Christmas Eve (ever since my friend and I were 5 years old, with a few years off) and do zillions of appetizers at one house and many desserts at the other, trading off from year to year–no proper “dinner.” But this year was the first year after the other family moved, so we couldn’t travel from home to home. So my mom planned our first Christmas dinner together–still with zillions of appetizers, but three different entrees (salmon, braciole, spaghetti pie), and just one dessert (bananas foster tarte tatin, from the latest Martha), with three different kinds of my dad’s homemade ice cream (vanilla, cinnamon, and vanilla-raspberry swirl). There were only six of us eating this meal. We all went up a pants size that night.

My parents drove me back to New York on Wednesday, which was great because how else would I have gotten my gifts home? I must report that I received no crafting gifts–in general, I get cooking gear rather than crafting gear. The most important is the new, slim TV–I can get rid of my hulking old tube TV that I’ve had for about 12 years and which is taking up far too much space. I also bought myself new sheets, some shoe organizing stuff, and new towels!

We spent the whole day on Thursday at the Met. I’d never been, except for a lunch with a friend. We barely scratched the surface of all the museum has to offer. The American in Paris exhibit was very nice, and the rooms of Asian art were pretty empty, giving us time to stroll through at a leisurely pace. Having my parents here visiting was a lot of fun; I even taught mom how to do Magic Loop, and she’s eager to get a sock on the needles.

I stopped by the office today to get some work I need to do before Tuesday, and what did I have but a package from Laura!

Some of her own hand-dyed yarn, in a very Affiknitty color, which smells of Kool-Aid, and stitch markers that had me squealing with delight: They’re little peppermints. How utterly perfect. With a handful of starlight mints thrown into the bag, I couldn’t be happier. Thank you so much Laura!

In my down time I’ve been knitting away on the cardigan for me using the reclaimed yarn from a sweater I knit for the Ex years ago (it didn’t fit right, so I took it out last year to knit him a new one). I chose the Cambridge Jacket from Interweave Knits Summer 2006, and I finished the back yesterday. It’s knitting up fast–size 8 needles are such a change from size 2s, since I’m usually knitting socks. Here’s the progress:

I hope to have the fronts done by Monday, at least!