I thought I was going to coast through Christmas, with not much stress after all was said and done. I was kinda congratulating myself a couple of days beforehand, thinking that despite the fact that I waited too long to get started, it was all going along swimmingly and I wouldn’t be up Christmas Eve until the wee hours finishing up the “must-dos.” I felt pretty good about the gifts for everyone and the preparations that I’d managed to handle.

However, while I wasn’t up until the wee hours with last minute rushing around, Christmas day still slapped me to the ground and stomped pretty hard thanks to GuitarGirl. Never happy, that one. I don’t know if it’s her expectations being too high or what, but she was just horrid on Christmas morning, and though I tried not to let it get to me, it did. She spent the morning being surly because she thought her sister was getting more gifts than she was. The cap to the morning was GuitarGirl bringing me the new book that I’d given her that I thought she’d be dying to read and the two others that came before it that she already had, and cuttingly saying “Oh, I forgot to tell you I didn’t really like these books anymore, so you can just sell them on ebay or whatever.” Well, all righty then! Is it any wonder I don’t look forward to Christmas anymore?

Needless to say, I didn’t feel much like Christmas after all that. ITMan watched his new movies, LittleOne (who was thrilled with all her presents under the tree) took off to her room to play, watch videos, read, etc., reappearing for food and chocolate as necessary. I did some quilting, working a little on The Misery Quilt (which is coming along, but obviously I’ve missed my Christmas deadline to have the quilting finished), and I started reading one of the books ITMan gave me for Christmas (which I love, by the way), and went to bed. And that’s been about the extent of my activity since Christmas day as well: quilting, reading, and taking it easy.

We did go out shopping (and returning some of the other gifts GuitarGirl didn’t want) on Friday, and had dinner out since it was our 18th anniversary. It’s hard to believe we’ve been married that long, but the years and the math don’t lie, I guess! Today I spent the day catching up on some web programming for a client, updating a plugin on my blog (which should have taken 15 minutes, but stretched into an hour or so ), and then I looked at my blog and saw that ten days have gone by since I posted. I guess that’s how years can go by so quickly, when you can’t even keep track of the days!

So I’m ready to put the whole Christmas rigmarole behind me and move on! My creative time of the year is coming and I have new ideas for quilts and website stuff running around in my head, just waiting for me to have some time to get started. Well, the quilt stuff has to wait until I get The Misery Quilt done, but that’s how it has to be. Anybody got some to spare? Time, I mean…

Share This

Lisa contacted me about Christmas Tree Bread last week after she read a Note at 9rules. In the Note, I said it’s just not Christmas without Christmas music from the Andy Williams Christmas Deluxe album that my natural father brought home from Japan around 1968, or the Christmas Tree Bread that my mom’s been baking for 40 years. I’ll bet Lisa thought I forgot about her or I made the whole thing up or something, but no. Yes, Lisa, there really is a Christmas Tree Bread recipe!

The recipe is from Sunset Magazine, and it’s really the biggest reason that I have a KitchenAid mixer. It’s a huge recipe, calling for about nine cups of flour, and it’s just difficult to do in a regular size mixer.Usually, I make the bread dough around the 23rd of December, so that I can shape it and bake it on Christmas Eve and it’s ready to eat on Christmas morning. Nobody gets one tiny bite until Christmas morning, but around the 27th, when we’ve plowed through all three loaves from the first batch, I usually make more so that we can continue to enjoy it for breakfast (and sometimes lunch) until New Year’s Eve at least. In the past, ITMan and the kids have asked me to make it for other holidays but I’ve refused, wanting to keep this a special Christmas-only thing.

I thought about making a batch early this year, so I could take pictures and all, but then I’d have to decide whether to let everybody dig in or freeze it until Christmas. In the end I decided not to tear holes in tradition around here, because if I do it once, they expect me to do it again, and I like tradition just the way it is! Recipe follows! Read the rest of this entry »

Share This

No, I didn’t go on vacation, just been super busy here! Just FYI, busy+notmuchquilting=nofun. Well, maybe not “no fun,” just not as much fun! Anyway, things may be winding down to an acceptable level, so I can just coast through Christmas now. The last party is over, thank goodness, and I finished up my last online programming class for this month yesterday. I’ve been working on a gift for my landlords and I finished it up today:

I made them a set of eight placemats to go with the table runner and the napkin rings that I’ve made in previous years. I was a bit worried as I was making them, since they seemed to be a bit “floofy” and weren’t laying flat after they were quilted. I think I should have used a thinner batting. I decided to toss them in the washer and pray to the quilting goddess for a boon. Since fabric placemats need to be washable anyway, I also figured it would be better to get it over with now in case the machine embroidery didn’t survive.

The embroidery came out fine, and after a bit of judicious steam pressing, the mats are wonderfully flat! I guess the quilting goddess figured it was my turn or something. Whew! I’m probably going to have to think of something else entirely for next year, since I’ve used up most of the green fabric for the embroidery, and I’m not sure what else to make anyway. Napkins?? Hmmmm…

I got a little bored quilting the placemats (okay, really bored!), so I decided to do some Pfaff vs. Bernina experiments with my machines. If I’m going to do machine guided quilting, I usually use the Pfaff because it has the built-in dual feed, so I started quilting the placemats with the Pfaff 2056, my favorite machine until the Bernie came to live here. When the quilting wasn’t turning out so well, I thought I’d see what the Bernina 440 had to offer with the walking foot. Read the rest of this entry »

Share This