Holidays :)/:(

The Holidays are a weird time for me.  I realize that after I write this people will probably think I am a Scrooge McDuck...but I ams what I am.   This time of year makes me think alot about my father who died a week before Thanksgiving when I was a child.  I think about all the years we missed out on together.  I think about how he has never met his grandchildren or my hubby, or seen me grow into a woman.  How he has never tasted one of my home cooked meals.  What I would give him for a gift if he were here.  Just so many things.  To be totally honest I do not remember one Christmas with Dad.  I do remember birthdays, but for some strange reason I cannot remember a Xmas with him.

I am not a religious person so the religious significance of Christmas means nothing to me.  Growing up we were not religious either.  Christmas meant "GIMME"!...which I am ashamed to admit.  I grabbed the Toys R Us and Service Merchandise catalogs and circled and dog-earred corners on all pages that I wanted something on.  Just ridiculous.  I very rarely got what I asked for.  I never had ill feelings about this, but often wondered why I was given these catalogs to circle items in if I was never to get any of them.  haha!  Being a mom myself now, I think it was probably just to keep me busy and out of my mother's hair for a while.  My mother always cooked a large meal which I always loved and miss very much now that we live so far apart.  But beware...if anyone did not arrive promptly at 2pm or failed to comment on how juicy the turkey was she would be upset and let it be known.  Until this day it baffles me how anyone can serve "DINNER" at 2pm!  That is lunch!  She would always be cranky because she had been up since 5am slaving over the stove, blah blah...Well, why do you do that!?  No one wants to eat at 2pm!  If she prepared the turkey the night before and put it in the fridge and then got up without an alarm clock when her body naturally woke her up, say around 7-8am, she could throw the bird in the oven and take her time with everything else and DINNER would be ready at DINNER time...say 5-6pm.  Everyone would be happier including the cook/host and people wouldn't have felt so stressed about eating at my Mom's house.  It would have been a pleasure not a chore, for everyone involved.  And the crazy notion that people that you have invited don't have anywhere else they may have to visit during the Holidays is plain old selfish.  All couples have their other half's family that they want to spend some time with too...just because we didn't roll like that doesn't mean that is not the way everyone else in the world does it.  Anywho... I seriously do not have Mom issues, she is one of my very best friends...just explaining our annual holiday scene.

Back to the gifts.  We were allowed to open one gift on Xmas eve.  I would scan the bottom of our sad looking artificial tree every day to see which one I would choose to open on Eve night.  Then on Xmas morning we would open all of our gifts.  We sometimes would get in the car and drive around to more affluent neighborhoods to see their beautiful decorations and lights on their huge homes.  Which as a child was nice, but I think I would have found that sort of depressing as a broke single mom.  But that's just me.  BTW, when I say "we", I mean me, haha  it was just me and mom.  She always hung stockings but never put anything in them.  It was all very bizarre, when I actually take the time to observe and report.  This was all normal to me until I was about 10 or 11 and had slept over a friends house on Xmas eve (which is odd to me that she even allowed that...I know my kids aren't sleeping anywhere but home on Xmas eve while they still live home with me).  My friends family was large and they had a tradition that they could open one gift on xmas eve as well, but the parents chose the gift and the gift was always new pajamas.  The kids all wore their new pj's on xmas eve, and the annual Polaroid was taken.  The kids all made cookies with their mom to leave out for Santa and carrots for the reindeer.  When the kids woke up in the morning their stockings, which were all hung down the staircase, were all stuffed with candy, new underwear and socks and small toys.  They all sat in front of the tree and opened all of their gifts and and played with their new toys for hours with each other while their mom cooked some side dishes and desserts to bring to their grandparent's house for the big dinner.  They always had mistletoe hung in the doorway to the living room.  I remember the phone was on the wall right there and if anyone was caught under the mistletoe they got a peck.  

After that holiday I spent with them I said that when I had my own children that we would have some sort of tradition for the kids to look forward to every year.  Well, sadly I have failed.  We have less tradition then my mom did!!  I have vowed this year to make a change.  I had my daughter when I was young and I was so hell bent on never depending on anyone for anything and not being that teen mom.  I worked my arse off and didn't have a lot of time left over to do alot of things I now wish I had.  I mean, we had fun, but I just wish that I spent more time building tradition and lasting memories with my daughter.  I was more focused on earning more money so I could buy her more.  She no doubt knows that I love her with all my heart.  But if I had to do all over again, she would have received less material items and received  more of my quality time.  I guarantee you she can not remember one xmas gift she has ever received; which is sad because that is what I chose to give her instead of putting more time and effort into creating memories through time we have spent and building family tradition.  My daughter is now 16 years old.  I know that in just a few years she will be moving out on her own but we are starting to do more as a family NOW!  It's never too late.  I want her to WANT to come home for the holidays after she is living on her own.  

We now have an almost 2 year old son.  He has brought a lot of joy and laughter into our home.  I am 16 years older than I was when I had my daughter.  I have matured tremendously (not just in age) and I was more prepared to be a mom than I was at 17.  We have a more comfortable home and more luxuries than we did back then.  And most importantly, the most amazing man is his Daddy!  I still work full time, but I no longer live to work.  I know now that I have nothing to prove to anyone.  I know that I am a great mother and if anyone disagrees...screw ya.  How do ya like those apples??!!  Haha!  I love watching my son and how amazed he is by everything.  I love to hear him say, "WOWWWWW!!"  He loves lights, the taste of new foods, the smallest cheapest thing is a source of hours of entertainment. He makes me want to love the holidays.

I want to teach my kids to be appreciative of their family and friends and for everything that they have.  I want to teach them charity.  It may be too late for my daughter in these areas.  She truly is a very selfish and unappreciative person.  Which infuriates me because we are not this way and we have not raised her to be.  But maybe when she sees that her brother as small and young as he is, can give away toys that he no longer plays with to children with less than he, she will see how easy and rewarding it can be to be charitable.  

I want my children to WANT to spend the holidays with their family, not do it because it is expected and if they don't mom will be sad.

I have been searching online and have come across lots and lots of great ideas for holiday tradition that people have shared.  Some of the ones I am going to start with my family are:

• homemade Advent calendars which will be filled with "Family Time Tickets" and a small treat each day.
• sending the kids to bed.  Preparing hot chocolate and a snack and then waking them up and pack everyone in the car with the goodies and drive around to look at the lights.
• hanging mistletoe in the doorways.
• making cookies together for Santa.
• We will continue our stocking stuffing as we do every year.
• Christmas brunch.  All family members will make something.

If anyone has any more ideas, please share them.

I am really trying my hardest to enjoy the holidays from this point on.  I hope everyone else has a wonderful Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa or whatever it is that you celebrate.  Celebrate Family!!

Been busy!

I haven't posted in a few weeks.  I have been super busy!  In that time, I have knitted my son a balaclava (which came out AWESOME), knit myself a slouchy hat, cooked a turkey dinner with all the fixings and have almost completed the second quilt for my friend.  And the most exciting thing about all of this is...I TAUGHT MYSELF HOW TO FREE MOTION QUILT!!!  (Using Oh Fransson's tutorial).  Whoot!  Go me!!  I had read the tutorial about 20 times before, but finally decided to use some scrap material and made a quilt sandwich and tried it.  I don't know why I was so intimidated by this method of quilting!!  It is fun and I find it easier than the "X" quilting and definitely easier and neater than straight line quilting.  I like it soooo much that I am planning to do the unthinkable this weekend.  I plan to rip out the binding and all of the (not so) "straight line" quilting that I did in the "Shock the Monkey" quilt.  The more I look at the back of that quilt the more I see my errors.  I did a pieced back on the monkey quilt and it somehow shifted when I was quilting and the "straight" lines show off just how crooked everything is...(to me anyway).  I am learning lots of things...1.) that I am a bit of a perfectionist, more so than I ever thought. 2.) sometimes you just need to jump in with both feet and try something new and scary!.  3.) Sometime less is more....this is a rule I follow with lots of things in my life, but with quilting I seem to go overboard and want to show off all of my skills and fabrics.

Re: #3  As I said I did a pieced back for the monkey quilt.  Now on the current quilt, I used a $4.00 solid color sheet from Walmart.  And I think it looks fab.  Nice and clean!  I have seen pieced backs that other people have done and they look stunning.  When I try it - it just looks wonky and cluttered.  From now on I will stick with my new rule of less is more when it comes to backing.      

What else???... Oh I have been on a never ending mission to purchase some attractive, solid color, stackable recycle bins that will not put me in the poor-er house.  I thought I hit the jackpot and ordered a set of three frosted white stackable recycle bins on Amazon.  They were delivered today and they were all cracked and shattered.  These obviously will not work for me and my family.  We are...how should I say?.... not delicate!  And if these could not stand up to being shipped in a box then they definitely will not endure being kicked and dragged up and down stairs and thrown on the side walk by our not so delicate trash collectors.  So needless to say they are back in the box, and awaiting the UPS pickup that Amazon has set up for their return.  In the meantime, we will continue to use our ugly, bulky, non matching non stacking (but we make them stack) pine green and bright orange Sterlite containers in our modern newly redecorated and tiled kitchen, UGH!  Who'd a thunk it would be so difficult to find some space saving, durable yet somewhat attractive bins so we can be green in style.  The search continues...