Christmas Mittens

When my father was a boy, his mother started knitting these snowflake mittens. She would use wool yarn for the body for warmth, and a synthetic blend for the cuff, so that it would maintain its shape better. When she became a grandmother, she began to knit tiny snowflake mittens for her grandchildren. My brother, cousins and I had collections of all sizes and colors of these mittens. A few years ago, she knit a pair for each member of our family for Christmas. I got a red pair, as you see in the photo above.

We took a photo on the stairs of our entire family wearing our snowflake mittens. I like to pull it out and show it to friends from time to time with the simple statement "and here is my family." Without the slightest hint of humor at how cheesy the picture is. They always stifle their laughter until I smile and acknowledge the fact that most people do not have a picture of their entire extended family wearing mittens.

When it came to domestic matters, my grandmother was a brilliant baker and crafter. But she was also quick witted and honestly a little bit of a hard-ass. She didn't like complaining and she valued hard work above nearly all else. Sometimes I think about how much she did before noon in her most active days that I can remember. This convenience world that we live in requires very little actual "work" in the physical sense. We can "work" all day at a computer without creating anything tangible. For some reason, around the holidays, I get this urge to create, whether it's cooking or knitting a scarf. Maybe its the cold weather, or maybe it's a way to honor the generations that came before that did these things each day.

Merry Christmas!

My Christmas List

Here are a few things I'd be thrilled to find under the tree this year. None of these are realistic, but perhaps that's half the fun.

A cattle dog pup! I fell in love with the two sweet cattle dogs that belong to some of my friends over the summer. A dog isn't in my near future, but look at that face!

A tropical vacation

A great new job

What do you want for Christmas?

Scary Claus

{Image via Amazon}

Over the next 10 days I'll be doing some posts about my favorite holiday traditions. Since the holidays can be a stressful time of year as well I thought it would be fun to talk about something I did NOT like as a kid about Christmas.

When I was a kid, I was terrified of Santa Claus. My mother was never one to make us do things we were afraid of, but she did occasionally ask me to go see Santa every other year or so. I would oblige, probably because I thought I wouldn't get any presents if I didn't. I would dread the event and always feel an immense sense of relief when it was over.

In my experience, there are generally two types of Santa Claus'. The first is the general mall/strip mall Santa. This guy looks like he hasn't slept in weeks and had a beer for breakfast. His suit is ratty and his beard resembles tangled fiberglass. I.e. the Santa from A Christmas Story. The second type of Santa is the Macy's Santa. This guy is actually an old dude with a white beard. He looks more like someone's grandpa than a guy that just got off a 5 day bender. He might be a little jolly around the mid-section and his pop-culture equivalent is the Santa from Miracle on 34th Street.

It seems that most of my childhood memories of visiting Santa more closely resemble the former version. The worst was at a strip mall in the town adjacent to where I grew up. He was scary, fake beard, and not the jolly old elf he was promised to be. As I walked up the cheesy candy-cane lane, that seemed a mile away from where my mother stood and waited, I could feel my heart beat quicken. I turned back and mother waved and smiled. I looked ahead to "Santa", sitting on his ply-wood and spray painted throne, hunched over and looking hung over. He perched me on his knee and asked the obligatory question, halitosis overwhelming his words. I blurted out the first thing I could think of, American Girl doll stuff and hoped that it would soon be over. We took a quick snapshot and my mother was given a Polaroid in a card stock frame.

The next time, we went to Macy's and stood in the impossibly long line to see Santa. I'm sure it was supposed to be better. After all, Santa actually was a jolly old man this time. He wasn't in a strip mall, his digs were far superior, but somehow it didn't matter. This visit was just as bad as the one before.

While an adult can make the distinctions between the two types of Santas, kids don't bother. And why should they? At the end of the day they're sitting on a stranger's lap either way. When you think about it, taking a child to sit on a strange man's lap in a mall is a bizarre and legitimately scary thing. When you take away the illusion of the spectacle, it's easy for adults to see why this could be such a terrifying event for a child.

Holiday Books

I am nearly done with my term at school and have found the past few weeks were such a whirlwind I wasn't able to get much writing done. Well, actually I did a ton of writing. I was just writing a 20 page literature review and 3 other papers instead of writing for this blog. I am looking forward to this week and getting back into the habit of updating.

When I was young I loved to read and I always looked forward to bringing out the holiday books at Christmastime. Here are a few of my favorites:

The Starlight Bride by Paul Owen Lewis

This book is beautifully illustrated by Pacific Northwest author Paul Owen Lewis. A prince must find his bride and one true love before Christmas.

Christmas Trolls by Jan Brett has some of the most intricate and beautiful illustrations. The mittens in this book look a lot like the ones my grandmother used to knit for our family.

Kirsten's Suprise was a book based on the American Girl doll who had come to America with her family from Sweden. I still love this book because it is all about blending old traditions with new during the holidays.

This year I'd like to add Letters from Father Christmas by J.R.R. Tolkien to my collection!

{All images via Amazon.com}