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The Week After

We're home, back from a few days near Atlanta with my extended family. Christmas was observed almost exactly as I described it last week—the traditional meal (next year, I think I'll suggest adding a green salad to the buffet), carol singing, gift giving, Rook. We played Apples to Apples and watched Up, this year, and we laughed a lot.

My sister has a lovely armoire in her family room with drawers on the bottom and doors on the top. I'm not sure what she keeps behind those doors during the rest of the year, but at Christmas she keeps candy and nuts like you wouldn't believe. It's one of our first stops when we all show up for Christmas brunch—we can't wait to see what treats are in all the tins and boxes.

So we don't spend a fortune buying gifts for everyone, we draw names, and this year I drew the name of one of my sisters. We decided to make our gifts, so I made a scarf out of yarn made from local sheep, and I painted something sort of similar to the pasture where the sheep graze. In actuality, it's not remotely similar, but I did my best. The sister who drew my name gave me a bundle of hand-dyed batting. Apparently I can knit with it, but I'm considering having it spun into yarn so I don't make a mess of the thing. It's beautiful, and I'd hate to ruin it.

My personal family unit often takes a winter vacation between Christmas and New Year's day. We've been to Maui, taken a Caribbean cruise, been to California. This year we talked about going to Florida for a few days, but we decided to just stay put in Small Town. And what do you think we're doing instead of vacationing? We're playing Wii, and we're sitting on the couch and knitting. Yes, knitting. No. 1 is making wrist warmers, and I'm making a very long, curly scarf for her. Don't you wish you were vacationing at Scout's house? Aren't we a lot of fun? Actually, we are, and we're not the least bit disappointed that we chose to stay home.

We're also cooking vegetarian. Yesterday, I baked a loaf of banana bread with hazelnuts and chocolate chips. I made a chilled spinach dip and toasted pita bread, and we made polenta pancakes with avocado and tomato filling (more about that tomorrow).

What do you do between Christmas and New Years when the days aren't technically holidays but they don't feel like regular days, either?

Comments

kyle@sift said…
Unfortunately, we go back to work scrambling to figure out who is going to take care of Francesca while school is still out.
12:59 PM
Miz Minka said…
What I would do between Christmas and New Years if I had my druthers: knitting while "watching" movies on DVD, or reading through my stack of Discworld novels. I'm hoping I'll be able to do that next year.

What I am doing: packing boxes and generating a huge mess because we're moving this Saturday. No rest or relaxation for the weary; and I go back to work on Monday. :(

Your in-between-holidays activities sound wonderful, even with all the cooking difficulties! :)
11:07 AM
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