Merry Christmas!

Well Christmas is just about over. Surprisingly, I'm not asleep in bed yet- Kevin is out cross country skiing (he left at 9:00!) and I'm waiting up for him. So I thought I'd do a bit of a recap.

We stayed in Iowa for Christmas, and like all our Midwest Christmases, there wasn't much to this one. This was probably the sparsest yet- in Ohio, we usually put up stockings, but here in Iowa we haven't decorated yet. Usually Kevin makes a gingerbread house, but this year we didn't. So our house it was really more a 4-day weekend with gifts (my sister jokingly told me this is the best kind of weekend.)

So what were the gifts:
The number 1 gift: A serger!
Mom and Dad (who got me a sewing machine when I was a little girl -one of my favorite Christmas memories, I'll tell it at the end of the blogpost) got this for me. I feel like a real "sewist" (apparently the community doesn't like "sewer" I guess I understand why, and "seamstress" or "tailor" all have specific conotations, or something). I managed to break a thread pretty quickly, but Kevin came to the rescue and figured the instructions out to get it rethreaded very easily. Then I played with the settings, and set it to do a rolled hem. I'm making a headscarf in a floral batik to wear on my vacation. Nothing wrong with the one on my head, but I wanted something more Carribean :)

So what else did I get? Lots of sewing stuff.
My MIL gave me a $35 gift certificate to www.gorgeousfabrics.com and I bought 2 yards each of
a daisy design and a pink fabric that caught my eye. (GRRR! Both are on sale now for $7.50 a yard! I paid $10!!!)

And she got me 3 Jalie patterns! 2 knit tops and jeans! The knit tops will be made out of cheap fabric first (to test the serger) then the Gorgeous Fabrics are earmarked for them. The jeans- well they might sit in the stash for awhile, but what a dream to be able to make ones that fit tailor made! (I found a woman in town that gives lessons... I'd need them for this project!)

Of course I got a few stocking stuffers- chap stick from Burt's Bees Wax, a Glee calendar, and two giant vanilla tootsie rolls (LOVE THEM).

I always got a horrible back ache from shoveling a TON of snow- I mean a TON. Where did this all come from? And I got very very homesick. I'm very excited about the upcoming cruise (and very glad that we have some family coming along- my BIL and SIL) and I know I can't go on vacation and go home for Christmas, but when Kevin left for the night I just broke down. I hate missing family Christmas, I hate living so far away from my family and so many of my friends, and I hate knowing that my 2 of my nephews and my niece will never again have a first Christmas, and missing one where the older nephews on each side had a great joy in receiving gifts and playing with them. (Not sure they have great joy in Santa- at least one of them is very unsure about the whole idea.)

Hey! It's 11:00 and Kevin's home from skiing! So I'll sign off now. I hope you all had a very Merry Christmas, with a bit less lonelyness than I did...

*Favorite Christmas memory: As children (and still) we were quite spoiled on Christmas, always lots of presents, and always the ones we want. One Christmas (maybe I was 8ish? I don't know for sure) neither my sister or I got the "big" gift we asked for. We of course were thrilled with what we did got, but I know I was, and she probably was, secretly a little sad. We went to the kitchen to help prepare Christmas breakfast. My Mom went into her room to grab something, and she starts yelling hysterically "Mark (my Dad) I left the water on in the tub! The bathroom is flooding!!! Come quick, bring towels, I need help cleaning this up." I figured this out right away- I'm not sure if it's true, but I remember my sister running for towels. But NO- I knew there was no flood... hopefully there was a sewing machine, and sure enough, I ran to the bathroom and in the tub was not a ton of overflowing water but our "big ticket" gifts- my sewing machine, and my sister's rabbit fur coat. In hindsight, it may be very possible these weren't the gifts we got that year, but that's what I remember. (I say that because I was 8 in 1990, and I'm not sure fur still would have been in fashion by then. Maybe that was when she got her leather jacket...)