Merry Christmas Everybody!!!

I do hope you all had a wonderful Christmas!

Here's our tree on Christmas morning. This is not the tree we had originally.
My parents are bright and clever and interesting and practical and pretty worldly and very funny. But not that quick when it comes to buying Christmas trees. This year my brother found himself in a similar situation - all the usual places had sold out or closed down. (Unlike where I live in Manhattan, where you can't walk two blocks without encountering a pavement covered in deliciously pine-fragrant trees of all sizes).
The youngest of my siblings did manage to find a place that still had a few trees left so he got one for us as well as one for his own little family. He kindly brought it over, sawed off the bottom, chopped off a few of the lower branches, found a bucket and some rocks and set it up in our living room. Celebrating his efforts by lifting my niece onto his shoulders so she could pop the fairy on the top. It looked good. Nice and tall and broad. Then the needles started to drop. Not just the normal few... the carpet started to turn from light brown to pine needle green.
So....we turned to my sister and she found us this little beauty, just in time for my Mum and neice to decorate it on Christmas eve. The good thing about a small tree is that it doesn't take so long to decorate!

I can't remember much since my last posting.....it's all a blur of sneezing, nose blowing, and trying to get to sleep - this has been my main source of nourisment, (not the fly spray!):


My Dad had a rotten cold when he greated me on the driveway last Sunday. I was weak and tired - I knew I would catch it!!
On the train ride back from London, I started to feel it coming.... the scratchy thoat....that pressure in the sinuses... I didn't have the energy to fight it... I just let it claim me.
I'm feeling much better now though! My strength returned just enough for me to make a delicious vegetarian Christmas pie:

Good job too, otherwise I would've had just potatoes for my main meal, (wouldn't be the first time!) And seeing as though I'm the only veggie in the family -there's plenty left over for me to eat whenever I want a nibble - hoorah!
Of course it wouldn't be Christmas without Quality Strret. My sister bought two giant tins. My favorite is the fudge one - YUM! I'm not going back to NY until I've put on at least 10 pounds!!

Although I was out of it for the last few days, I did manage to get a bit of knitting in, (no surprise there then!)
Here's a scarf I finished in the wee hours of Christmas morning when the house was full of snores and ticking clocks:

It's the free kit I got for renewing my Rowan membership last year. I think it's called Froth Scarf and it's made from two balls of Kidsilk Haze, (nice stuff, but a pain to frog!) I didn't want to do the ruffle trim, so just carried on with the main pattern until I'd used up all the yarn.
Here's the recipient, taking a break from kitchen duties:


As well as being nuts about all things knitting, I have another passion......I am an admirer of the work of Dutch artist and storyteller, Dick Bruna. My favorite character of his being a certain little rabbit named, Miffy. Over the years I have collected tonnes of Miffy stuff; books, toys, mobiles, bags, pencils etc. but I don't have the room for such a collection now so it is mostly boxed up in my parents' attic, at least that's where I hope it is!!
I usually where an orange Miffy watch, but I need to replace the battery!
This Christmas my Mum gave me these:

Hoorah! My feet will be warm and happy and covered in pink Miffies!!




Talking of pink......that's my 4 3/4 year old niece's favorite colour...
Here's she is testing out her new pink skates - we had good fun yesterday tearing up and down the hall - i think its fabulous that she shows no fear and laughs louder than ever when shes dramatically crashes to the floor!


I'll be babysitting her this evening while my sister and her partner/boyfriend/finace? (not sure what we're calling him at mo?), anyway...they're going out tonight, so I'll be over at their farm getting up to all sorts of mischeif with little miss trouble! hehehe!

It's great being at my parents' house. It's spacious and airy and I get to sleep in a proper bed! There is plenty of good food and we have a good laugh. But there are weird things in the house - things one normally wouldn't expect to see...
As I walked into the room I'm sleeping in, I notice stuff on the floor - the usual; clothes, boxes, remains of Christmas present wrapping, then near a set of drawers was this:

Two limbless dolls wrapped in plastic...

Downstairs in the "Sewing Room", so named as it houses a couple of sewing machines and tonnes of fabric, but also many other things that haven't found a proper home. When I went in there to fetch a box of chocolate shortbread biscuits, (YUM!),I found these in the corner:




Is it just my family that's like this?