Brain Sucking Santa Hat, Holy Christmas Blop. Oh, and some knitting.

I went to my best gal friend's house for my God Daughter's birthday. Officially a one year old! She was having an odd time of it, I don't think she was totally used to the idea of cake, if you can believe it. She didn't want cake, she didn't really want to sit in her high chair, and she was a bit tired, I suspect. After we opened presents, she sat, as she does sometimes, up against my legs. I leaned over to look at her, and she realized I had this THING on my head. They gave out the dunce cap style party hats, and I just stuck the Santa hat over it. This gave it a tall, swinging motion, that scared the livin' POO outta her! She slid down my leg, stared at the evil Santa hat from Hades, then crawled as fast as she could move to Mom. No more being with "Auntie" that evening. She didn't even want to LOOK at me! Oh, well, soon Christmas will be over, and the Brain Sucking Santa Hat will be retired for another year.

Had my niece and nephew over for making cookies, a task I suspect they'd never done. My reasoning, trying to get them to understand that a cup of flour means that you FILL the cup, and you put in molasses, you FILL the cup, and (name ingredient here) you FILL the (your measurement here)... But, we got thru. I didn't think Nephew would be that thrilled, he being almost 18, but as he said, "hey, gets me out of the house..." Eh. Neice was more excited, but still not really as into it as I'd hoped. When I was younger... Well, actually, even now, decorating cookies is like major leauge fun. Not these two. Thank all that's Holy I didn't make a double batch of cookies. They decorated about 10 each, and that was enough, thank you. Uh, guys, we still have 1/2 the dough left. I proceeded to cut out cookies to finish it up, traditional gingerbread boys. Nada. They yawned. That's enough, auntie, we will just take them with us, we don't want to decorate anymore. As I try and get my head around the fact that decorating isn't the wonderful fun activity for them, Husband comes to the rescue and takes them out to play with the dog. I box up all of those poor nekkid ginger kids, and sniff lightly. Being sent out with no proper frosted or sugared clothing. Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!! But, hey. I have another batch of cooky dough in the fridge, just waiting to be little well dressed ginger folk. Take THAT, neice and nephew! (Actually, don't. I didn't keep any of the cookies we made that day.)

One funny thing that happened, I had almost finished, and there was just a wee bit of dough left, so I patted it into a hamburger patty type shape, and threw it in the oven with the rest of the cookies. Niece asked, what is that? A cookie... Yeah, but what is the shape? (We'd been using some of my cooky cutters that are rather old, and have some interesting shapes, not necessarily Christmas. In fact, nephew was quite taken with an axe cookie cutter. I didn't have the heart to tell him it's generally for use on Washington's Birthday...) I looked at the little end bit, and told Niece, "It's a Holy Christmas Blop." Her eyes got round as saucers, and she asked, nearly in a whisper, "Why?" I replied, "Because that's the quickest answer I could think of after you asked..." They didn't know whether auntie was serious, crazy, or just in need of a good stiff drink. (Probably a little of all three, truth be told.)

And finally, knitting. I had a gal saying she wanted to knit some hats for her grandsons in Holland, but she hadn't had time to learn. I got a wild hair, and knit two up. One for an 8 month old, and I believe she said the other was around 4.



And another friend, who was my belly dance teacher, has a 3 year old, and I wanted to make a 'gnome' for her.



I am planning to make smaller versions of these sometime, and make "elves". I think it will be about the time I win the lottery and grow 4 more arms to handle all the knitting, but hey. I still can imagine.

I have one more item I've been knitting on, and will be showing that after said recipient does said receiving... (Hi, Mom...)

So, Merry Christmas, we have safe and healthy trees, animals, family and friends, and are looking forward to a good Christmas. Take care.