Thursday, December 23, 2010

Countdown to Christmas: A Charlie Brown Christmas

Linus Monologue from A Charlie Brown Christmas

Charlie Brown Christmas Dance

Only two days left until Christmas (or three if you want to count today)!  I was thinking of Christmases way back while I was driving home last night. I was thinking about how I began celebrating with family on Christmas Eve.  I was dating my future husband and had been invited to his parent's house on the eve.  I learned that both parents arrived in the United States on ships from their respective countries, Poland and Sweden, in the early 1900's.  The tradition of their cultures was to celebrate on Christmas Eve, and they kept their customs.  I was so excited, I never did this before, I tasted all kinds of food, including sill on hard crackers and kielbasa. I wanted to give a nice gift, so I pulled out my knitting books and found a beautiful throw pillow made of 4 squares, that when sewn together made a flower petal.  I was in nursing school back then, so I was frantically creating as I studied for final exams.  When Christmas Eve came, I still needed to finish this thing!! My heart pounded as I was sewing peices together, then sewing the knitted square onto a cloth square. Then came the stuffing, I had bought a large bag of fluffy stuffing, and I discovered that I should have bought two bags, I didn't have enough.  Now, I was in a panic!  "What am I going to do now?"  There was no option to go to a store, I was being picked up in a half an hour!  So, I looked in my dorm closet for an idea and I spotted my folded set of clean sheets for my bed on the top shelf and thought, "AHA!"  Those sheets were shoved inside the pillow, the fluff put all around it and it was sewn up so fast and wrapped and I thought, "Ready, no one will know!"  The gift was proudly given (of course, thinking about the secret inside all the while), it was graciously received and nicely displayed on the couch after wards.  Months later at Easter, a young neice visiting and was lying down on the couch with her head on the pillow, then she loudly remarked, "This pillow feels like a brick!"  I was so mortified, my secret was out!  Then it became a topic of discussion, "no it doesn't, you're imaging it", "Oh, yes it does!"  Long story short, I confessed what I did and since it was an issue, I re-stuffed the pillow with nice soft stuffing.  This pillow was affectionately named "The Brick" after that! There are more stories, too, as I rush to the finish line of completing a gift just in time to give it!  It is definitely more fun for me to make a gift, it feels extra special.  Anyone out there rushing to finish up a project now?

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