It’s that time of year again. I hate it. I am totally losing my cool. The streets and shops are suddenly full of people who want to rub your face in it…and this year, my own children are part of it. Go ahead, ask them. They can tell you. There are 46 days to Christmas. I know that was painful, if you need to go have a little lie down I completely understand. I think that nausea, dizziness and an urge to throw yourself in front of a Streetcar is normal. Every-time somebody tells me, I think a wild conglomeration of equally frantic and hysterical thoughts.
46 days until Christmas?
1. Seriously?
2. What is Wrong with me? Christmas comes on the same stinking day every year. How is it possible to truly have it sneak up on you each and every year with a pain that is fresh and vulnerable?
3. How, I ask you, does a reasonably intelligent, educated woman, responsible for the Christmas of others, including innocent little children, somehow fail to count out the 365 day interval between Christmases? It’s not like in October they phone you with the random appointed Christmas date for this year and scream “Surprise! 46 days! Try to knit your way out of that one, Ya twit!”
4. How the hell am I going to knit -insert insane gift list here- in -insert inversely related number of days here-?
5. How much egg nog with screech in it is a reasonable response to that?
6. Screw Santa. He never helps me with anything. Maybe he’s dropping by your house with a whack of farty little elves, but there’s nothing I need to thank him for.
7. 46 days til Christmas? Maybe you should shut your filthy little mouth.
Poncho poncho poncho
I gave away my fleece artist poncho. I know. I can’t hardly believe it either, but it made me look short (shut up. I know I’m 5 feet tall but I labour under the delusion that I actually seem much, much taller, like maybe…5’3 or even 5’4″) and I felt like I was drowning in it. Plus, the mohair shed so much that it left autumn coloured dust buffalos (like bunnies…but bigger) roaming the plains of the house. If you wore it, when you took it off you had an elegant autumnal halo of mohair clinging to every surface of you. Lint is nothing in the face of true love though, and when Teresa walked into my house, she saw it, and lost her mind. She put it on and she looked like a million bucks. (Teresa is doing the “Sears Catalogue” pose. Is that universal?) I warned her about the buffalos, I told her about the halo. She didn’t care.
It’s hers now. I’m glad it’s going to be with someone who will love it. I know it was the right thing to do when Teresa called me this morning to tell me about all the compliments she was getting. Women were swarming her begging for a Fleece Artist Poncho dealer. She looked “fabulous” “wonderful” and “chic”. When I wore it, all anyone ever said was “wow….that’s fuzzy”. You can’t fight poncho destiny.
(There are two things that surprised me about giving away the poncho. First, can you believe I gave away Fleece artist? Second, can you believe that I didn’t wait 46 stinking days and give it to her as a Christmas present? Moron. This is why Christmas whups my arse every year. )
I delivered Emma’s poncho.
I laid it atop the original Harlot poncho so you could see the difference in size. All I did to get a ten year old size was cast on fewer stitches (52) and knit it shorter. Taking the concept even further….I started a baby one for Teresa’s little girl. (Also starring in this photo…the super cool mug that Elizabeth threw and painted. She calls it a Dale of Norway mug. I love it. I think it makes my coffee taste really good).
Wait….This baby poncho could be a present, right?
Tomorrow….Further adventures in renovation land OR “There’s only 46 days until Christmas…wanna rip the back off the house?”
Yarn Harlot
Are you serious? You knit faster than anyone I’ve ever heard of. I’m sure you’ll be “scrambling” to get whole sweaters finished for all your family and all your friends and all their kids, while also renovating the house and knitting for yourself, while the rest of us mere mortals will be hard pressed to get some socks and a few scarves done for a third the number of people.
I am usually still knitting on Christmas eve, carefully prioritizing based on whose gathering comes first (sitting at one family gathering finishing gifts to be given at the next gathering. Pathetic.
AND I can’t start any gifts until the beginning of December, because on top of an insane amount of artwork I need to finish, I have three weeks to knit a dress out of 18-gauge wire. Eek.
Maybe you could just give people the closely held information about YOUR BOOK!!
BookBookBookBookBookBook!
INFORMATION is what the blog wants to help assuage the pain of approaching Christmas. The gift that keeps on giving.
I am AHEAD in my Christmas knitting. I have only one HAVE-TO knit — socks for my cousin. Done. Several scarves, done. Flower basket poncho, done. Several pairs of garter stitch gloves, done. Socks for sister-in-law, done, and one of the matching socks for her adorable daughter, done.
The really bad one — present for Harlot — you guessed it. DONE.
Is there more? well, maybe, but if I had to stop now, there would still be plenty of knitted items for all and sundry.
Want easy fast knitting patterns from the Internet? Check out this blog, with the all-too-appropriate name: “I am knitting as fast as I can” at http://ma2ut.blogspot.com/
The comments would not let me post html. Her sidebar lists a BUNCH of online patterns that take only up to three skeins of yarn and not too much time. The alpaca leaf hood is particularly nice.
BookBookBookBookBookBook!
(am I building up bad karma here? will I have to atone with multicolor roving?)
I’m knitting giant wool flowers, which I will then felt. Then I will affix pins to the backs with hot glue and I’ll have Christmas presents for all the stylish females I know. These ridiculous things are selling for more than $50 each at Nordstroms (not MINE, unfortunately, because someone else did it first). My friends and in-laws are SO LUCKY to know me! You can do it too. I have a feeling, though, that this might just be too simple a solution for someone who is truly great at complicating things!
So funny and so true, Stephanie! All except the ‘ya twit’ bit… Sorry, you CAN’T even think about being called a twit, we that moniker taken for the next four years…we have the LT (Lying Twit, not original to me, btw, one of the other bloggers) down here south of the 49th parallel..heh. Of course, if Santa and his farty little elves (god, I almost snorted my coffee on that one!) want our LT, we could be persuaded to part with him.heh. Maybe he could keep Mike Harris company, wherever he is???
and thanks for the daily shot of oh-so-canadian humor. We really need it down here…Hugs!
Stehphanie,
You’ve finally done it. I actually shot coke(the soda kind, twisted harlot) out of my nose while reading your blog.
“A whack of farty little elves” I assume refers to the jib jab animated short available at http://www.jibjab.com.
The fact that rednecked bodily function humor transcends international borders. Priceless.
Chuckle. I just had that same Christmas realization myself.
And it is true that some garments have different homes than we first anticipate. Hopefully sending that poncho on it’s way creates good knitting energy for getting through all the Christmas knitting!
Aaugh! Damn you, Teresa! I don’t even like ponchos & I had dibs on the Fleece Artist one. Oh well, I guess I’ll just have to come over & go gaga over something else the Harlot has made…
I’m with Laurie: BOOK
Its the kind and generous nature of your purehearted soul that prompts your unbelievable generosity and compassion for your friends.
And yes, Santa sucks.
Steph…now, I’m a novice knitter, but it’s good to know I’ve fallen prey to the same problem as you…I have two Pittsburgh Steelers Garter Stripe scarves (black and yellow color block) to knit, one Plain Old White with Blue Fuzzy Yarn garter stitch scarf to finish off by weaving in the ends, a scarf and hat combo to knit, a Pittsburgh Steeler hat to find a doable pattern for AND knit, and some other misc. stuff to make AS GIFTS that I probably don’t have the yarn for, BUT THAT HAS NEVER STOPPED A JUNIOR YARN HARLOT, NOW HAS IT? Rock on, Steph. If anyone can do it, it’s you.
Claudia’s approach to the stupefyingly commercial holiday that is Christmas:
1. Never knit anything for anybody as a Christmas present. They really want gift cards anyway.
2. Shop for said gift cards on one day the week before Christmas.
3. Think no more about Christmas.
4. Enjoy watching others behave like headless chickens. Especially enjoy Stephanie doing so.
I am with you all the way. I walked into Wal-Mart Saturday only to be greeted by a giant sign that read “7 SATURDAYS UNTIL CHRISTMAS”. My husband had to restrain me when I ran forward to kick the sign over, seriously. He knows how I feel about the “countdown”. I refuse to be threatened or intimidated. And Steph, obviously knowing you is like Christmas every day, I mean giving away Fleece Artist {albiet to a different Teresa, not this one, but I’ll get over it ;+)}, knitting up baby ponchos, etc, etc…..so give yourself a break. And hell, that fat, jolly elf never lends me a hand either.
Why are you giving christmas presents to anybody besides your kids? And maybe Joe – if the budget allows it.
I have given up on xmas presents. Partially because I am not christian, partially because I don’t want to be told WHEN I should give presents to my friends and acquaintances. And after the debacle where I made sweaters for my entire extended family one christmas (I was married to some christians at the time) – I NEVER KNIT MY CHRISTMAS PRESENTS.
People don’t really appreciate the work most often. If you HAVE to give somebody a present – may I suggest a donation to the United Nation Population Fund in their name?
This is not meant lasciviously, darlin’, but I love you for this:
“Screw Santa. He never helps me with anything. Maybe he’s dropping by your house with a whack of farty little elves, but there’s nothing I need to thank him for.”
LMFAO
Oh, and for Laurie (and rather selfish reasons, being my dual love borders on bibliofetish – I linked my other blog today):
BookBookBookBookBookBook!
My friend at Three olives and some Yarn sent me your blog address. Your a hoot. I don’t knit, I do some crocheting and other crafts. But I have a child/a house/ and plenty of run in’s and adventures with my bra. For more on this read at http://www.burfica.blogspot.com/
I’ll be coming back to keep myself entertained. hehehehee And all you counting down till Christmas. SHUT UP!!!! Denial is my friend. LOL
Screw Santa? I am driven to imagine things much more painful for him and his flatulent troupe.
Aara
Egad, we must have been separated at birth, except you got all the talent…(um, so what did I get?).
My sentiments exactly about the holiday…how does it creep up on us every year?
My solution for knitted items this year…harlot’s hat recipe done on size 17 needles with Italia Fingerpaints yarn…
Makes me look like a genius…LOL…
Plus, I like Claudia’s approach…gift cards for everyone!!!
Here’s to the holidays!!!! May they always be hectic…
;-D
My approach to Christmas is…if I don’t find the perfect thing for you, you’re getting a card and my heartfelt holiday greetings. I may have to adapt that, considering that I now have two nephews who need to be reminded that Auntie Melanie in the U.S. even exists. (Or so my sister oh so delicately hints) Suggestions for a 7 yr old and 2 yr old boy?
I’m too far away from family for Familial Holiday Gatherings, so Christmas is spent in PJs, with Matt and the menagerie, in generalized sloth. It’s very, very relaxing, although that could be due to the spiked hot chocolate….
I refuse to think about Christmas until the monday after (American) Thanksgiving. I curse the stores that have Christmas stuff up already and are playing Christmas Carols. Bah. Advent hasn’t started yet so in my mind there’s a lonnnnnnngggggg time before Christmas. Which is not going to bode well when it’s a week before Christmas and I’ve yet to finish the yet decided upon presents for my nephews.
Like Laurie, I’m ahead on my Christmas knitting. I should be I started it in effin january and it has filled my year. Next year, Claudia’s approach!
I hate to be the one to say this but…tomorrow it will only be 45 days, not 46 days til Christmas.
Steph –
You can save blogging time at some point soon by posting your famous “IT” post from Knitlist. That remains one of my very favorite Pearl-McPhees of wisdom.
Ok, I’ll go stand in the corner for that bad pun. 🙂
Chris
It could be worse – my family has just decided to do Christmas on **December 4th** when we’re all together in Michigan for my grandparents’ 65th anniversary. THAT’S IN LESS THAN 4 WEEKS. My available gift-procurement days have been halved.
Fortunately, my K1C2 “Pound Cake” (plus another half-pound of yarn) shawl for my Dubai, UAE-bound Foreign Service sister is done. And I knit a scarf for my father. Beyond that, all promised knitted projects will be bestowed on non-occasions. Like, because it was sunny on a Monday. I doubt we’ll have one of those now until next April. No pressure there…
My birthday is November 30. I start pestering my husband in September with “What are you getting me for my birthday?” (trust me, it’s adorable. he loves it. I swear). I started all my Christmas knitting in August, then got busy with fiber festivals and put it aside because there were still months and months to go….
WHAT????? 46 Days!!!! Holy mother of $%$&^!
46? no time for comment–must knit.
Ponchos for everybody!
Rilly. Give them chocolate or bubble bath, or if they’re Very Special, a bottle of Screech. Makes ’em value the random handknits they might receive on UnChristmas or their UnBirthday, all the more.
I’m serious!
xox Kay
BAH!! HUMBUG!!!
Go, Claudia, go! I’m with you!
I’m with Claudia on the holiday knitting (or, rather, no-knitting)plan. My shopping will be 95% done by Thanksgiving.
And I’m with Chris on the “please repost the IT post from the Knitlist”–I actually think I still have a copy of it saved!
Very kind of you to give away the Fleece Artist…now you can buy more.
46 days? Not when the most appreciative of giftees are out of state! Arrrrgh. You have just ruined my day. :o(
My mother called me last night. The conversation went something like this:
me: hello?
mom: I want to scream!
me: huh?
mom: there’s 6 1/2 weeks until Christmas.
me: fuck off, mom.
and tnen I hung up on the bitch.
I’m asking myself something right now…WHat the HELL are you doing?
IIRC you’re an atheist. So why are you driving yourself insane to celebrate someone else’s holiday?
I do a very minimal christmas. I get something for my parents becuase if I don’t they’ll be crushed. I get something for my Brother because it’s a good excuse. Ed gets nothing. Neither do my friends. My take on it is, I’m not a Christian, it’s not my holiday. If it’s a really, really big deal for someone else that I shower them with gifts, then fine, but I would rather not get them, and I sure as heck don’t like giving them.
So, if you are not Christian. Why are you driving yourself crazy to celebrate a holiday that’s not even yours?
PS- My brother is happy with a bag of army soilders and a zappy gun from Wall Mart. Tops, five bucks, if I go all out.
The kid’s almost 20. He just has an…odd sence of humor.
How To Survive Christmas, 101.
Make sure that “eggnog with screech” changes ratio, until it becomes “screech with eggnog.” In extreme cases – and you know who you are – skip the eggnog.
Just in case you DO want to rip the back of the house off-we call that “scrappage” and we have done that (and WORSE!) right before the holidays/events/family do things/ insert correct collosal event here. We are nuts. Scrappage is our lives. Keeps pepople from asking why the house hasn’t been vacuumed, by the way. (Yeah- always a silver lining)
Your post reminded me of a line from ‘Bad Santa’- ‘F*%&ing Santa, f%*&#ing Santa’ ad infinitum. Not really meant in the same context, but a line that seems to have applications in many conversations, especially this time of year. Your blog is delicious (did that sound gross?), thank you for it.
My deadline is just over 2 weeks away. My parents are coming up for Thanksgiving and I want to send my mom off with gifts for my relatives back home. I dislike waiting in line at the Post Office that much!
Ok. You did it. Coffee out the nose all over the desk and monitor. What a mess. But ya totally slayed with with the whole christmas thing. Thank you thank you thank you. You’ve made my day.
I’m the same way–I can’t wait for the appointed holiday to give away a knitted gift. I have to give it NOW! I’m knitting some novelty scarves for misc xmas gifts. One year it was all hats. I know you make such amazing stuff, but I just pick one thing and knit it like crazy for everyone on the list. And that something is something small. Though SIL did get a Lopi sweater one year–probably took less time to knit than a hat, LOL. No knits for her this year–guess who she voted for, grin. Maybe I’ll rise above, grin.
Are you freaking kidding me!?!?! 46 days left! I’m a long-time lurker, but that scared me so badly I had to come out. I’m DUE the day after Christmas with our first child. That means I have 47 days left to buy everything! It has snuck up on us that all we have bought so far is a crib and changing table. Crap!
You have just accurately described the last three months of my life. I’m past all of the “fun” (read: knitted) gifts and am on to the annoying ones – cross-stitch ornaments and rag quilts. I’ve developed a sadistic need to tell everyone else about the Christmas countdown. Whenever I go to my LNS (N = needlework), I tell the owner how many days she has to make ornaments, as her list is as long as mine is. Be warned that I will periodically remind you of how many days you have left, just so I’m not the only one panicking.
I am relieved that I’m in good company. 🙂
The easiest way out of this jam is NOT to knit Christmas gifts. Or to STRICTLY limit them.
After all, As Claudia said, they all want gift cards anyway and MY theory on it is this:
The more you knit them, the more they take the knitted gifts for granted. You gotta be SELECTIVE. Keep ’em WANTING it! NEEDING it. CRAVING it 😉
Were you though, to continue on the knitted-gift path, I’m sure you can hack it! YOU MADE AN F’IN ARAN SWEATER FROM SCRATCH IN 14 DAYS!!! WHAT CAN’T YOU DO?!
ps – that poncho is DEFINATELY an xmas gift.
“the mohair shed so much that it left autumn coloured dust buffalos (like bunnies…but bigger) roaming the plains of the house.”
Ha ha ha! I love your humor:)
Um… contributions to stashes with or without instructions on how to knit?
I LOVE the FELTED FLOWER possibility. I’m stealing it. I’m weird, so I’m sure mine will look different than anybody elses.
I have dust buffalos in my house, and I haven’t been using mohair…. ;-/
If Santa weren’t coming, what would the excuse be for cooking billions of cookies? WITH icing? AND sprinkles? Oh. Maybe the rest of you ONLY knit. I sit and EAT, too…… Epiphany isn’t until January 6, if that helps.
1. I love reading your posts, because they are always entertaining.
2. You are an amazing knitter, I have confidence you’ll get your Christmas gifts all done.
3. What do you mean by “there are only 46 days til Christmas”? Where’d all those other days go? (because I seriously need more days if I’m going to get all my Christmas gifts made).
I’m another November 30th birthday. I refuse to think about Christmas until after my birthday – 25 days is plenty of time.
I give you permission not to think about Christmas until after you’ve thought of something incredible to knit and send to the other side of the planet (I’m in Australia) by the 30th 🙂 See, I’m a generous and caring lurker.
Uh, and then my partner turns 40 on Christmas Day.
Let’s just say sharing birthday cake with the savior gets old, real old….. And she can never forget it’s coming up, because the whole blessed world is advertising it.
Like Dana said, January 6th is Epiphany, the original gifting day. If it was okay for the wise men to be late, it’s okay for me. Besides, do you trust all those merchants to include sale days in the count. Real number of days until gifts must be finished = 57!
Gee, thanks for NOTHING!! I was happily cleaning my house NOT thinking about Christmas. And then, wham–you had to burst my bubble! Nasty woman. Time to tell the kids that Santa was drinking and driving and won’t be able to deliver Christmas gifts on account of sitting in the slammer and having his license suspended until further notice. BAH HUMBUG everyone P.S. Why is my msndotcom email address considered questionable content for the past two days???
“a whack of farty little elves” – that phrase will warm me through the holidays like chestnuts roasting on an open fire…..
I feel your pain. I did the Christmas inventory yesterday, and discovered I had 5 partially knit gifts all in a state of unreadiness and a *large* pile of yarn which I confidently bought in August to be transformed into socks for everyone. What I need now is more socks and less yarn. And also not to be moving between now and Christmas and not to have my entire family descending on me in said new house from 21 December onwards. Crap.
Personally, I’ve always thought the “chestnuts roasting on an open fire” ought to be Santa’s…
My knitted Christmas gifts last year were given in pieces in a box with the needles still attached. The kids went home with the finished products damp wrapped in a towel and blocking on the drive back to Ft. McMurray. I celebrate Ukrainian Christmas when necessary…this gives you an unexpected bonus of days.
Farty elves….love it.
Barb Brown