Exams and first round of Christmas down
Finally I’m done with grading exams, and the first round of Christmas is over. Thank God it wasn’t at our house. After Thursday’s mostly blind day, I spent Friday finishing grading and trying to get things a little organized in my office—although the fact that I forgot even to water my plants ought to tell you what a good job I did of that. Then home to finish handsewing the binding on the two quilts for Chris’ parent’s Christmas presents.
This past Thanksgiving, all Chris’s brothers families got together at his dad’s house for the first time; we generally all get together at Christmas with his mom, but we see his dad and his wife here and there—they usually don’t get a big event organized, either, so I didn’t really realize that was something they much wanted to do (I hope Chris and I never get divorced). Anyhow, his father has pancreatic cancer this year and wanted everybody there for his 73rd birthday, which is right after Thanksgiving, so we combined the two events. And since we were all together before Christmas, I thought I’d have time to make a quilt with each grandchild’s handprint on a square, something I’ve always wanted to do. The timing seemed right, especially with Chris’s father so sick. And we finally have about all the grandchildren in the family we’re going to have too—one more is coming next summer, which’ll be four in that family, four in the youngest son’s family, and our two (and no, we don’t want four).
I thought I’d be able to work on the quilts during the Christmas holiday, since we usually go to Greenville after the 25th, but this year the family consensus was the 18th, so I had to really rush to finish them. So Friday night, there I was, sewing binding (bias cut by complicated mathematical formula, mind) and watching Star Trek. It took so long to finish I had to get up the next morning and wrap the presents we’d exchange that day right before we got in the car to leave—Chris helped, but boy does he hate wrapping. I actually wrap my own presents sometimes if he can get organized enough to get them into anonymous boxes—I keep thinking one day I’ll get a department store job wrapping presents, because I am good at that, let me tell you.
We got to Greenville, then, saw both sets of parents, exchanged all the presents, and got home about midnight last night. The kids are thrilled with their hauls—Will is especially fun to watch, since this is his first year of really understanding Christmas and presents (he opened Chris’s mom’s presents for her, which fortunately she didn’t mind). He’s in there now with Chris testing our the new batteries in his Spiderman car, while Laura, who is trying to watch her new DVD Shrek 2, is yelling, “That’s the loudest thing on earth!” Chris and I get money every year, which we are also thrilled with. It’s my birthday at Christmas too, so I get a pretty good haul of cash. I’ll hang onto it for a while in case we need it before our tax refund comes in, but after that I’m going to buy a new piece of art, I think.
After all that, we’re home and I can do whatever I want to today. I need to finish decorating the tree—it just has lights on right now. I haven’t wrapped any presents (and I still have a couple to finish). And the house is a wreck, and the laundry’s piled up. So I probably should work on all that so I can relax later this week in a clean house. But even the prospect of working on that stuff all day doesn’t bother me because I don’t have to do it if I don’t want to. I can do nothing all day! I have no deadline! I am finally free.
This past Thanksgiving, all Chris’s brothers families got together at his dad’s house for the first time; we generally all get together at Christmas with his mom, but we see his dad and his wife here and there—they usually don’t get a big event organized, either, so I didn’t really realize that was something they much wanted to do (I hope Chris and I never get divorced). Anyhow, his father has pancreatic cancer this year and wanted everybody there for his 73rd birthday, which is right after Thanksgiving, so we combined the two events. And since we were all together before Christmas, I thought I’d have time to make a quilt with each grandchild’s handprint on a square, something I’ve always wanted to do. The timing seemed right, especially with Chris’s father so sick. And we finally have about all the grandchildren in the family we’re going to have too—one more is coming next summer, which’ll be four in that family, four in the youngest son’s family, and our two (and no, we don’t want four).
I thought I’d be able to work on the quilts during the Christmas holiday, since we usually go to Greenville after the 25th, but this year the family consensus was the 18th, so I had to really rush to finish them. So Friday night, there I was, sewing binding (bias cut by complicated mathematical formula, mind) and watching Star Trek. It took so long to finish I had to get up the next morning and wrap the presents we’d exchange that day right before we got in the car to leave—Chris helped, but boy does he hate wrapping. I actually wrap my own presents sometimes if he can get organized enough to get them into anonymous boxes—I keep thinking one day I’ll get a department store job wrapping presents, because I am good at that, let me tell you.
We got to Greenville, then, saw both sets of parents, exchanged all the presents, and got home about midnight last night. The kids are thrilled with their hauls—Will is especially fun to watch, since this is his first year of really understanding Christmas and presents (he opened Chris’s mom’s presents for her, which fortunately she didn’t mind). He’s in there now with Chris testing our the new batteries in his Spiderman car, while Laura, who is trying to watch her new DVD Shrek 2, is yelling, “That’s the loudest thing on earth!” Chris and I get money every year, which we are also thrilled with. It’s my birthday at Christmas too, so I get a pretty good haul of cash. I’ll hang onto it for a while in case we need it before our tax refund comes in, but after that I’m going to buy a new piece of art, I think.
After all that, we’re home and I can do whatever I want to today. I need to finish decorating the tree—it just has lights on right now. I haven’t wrapped any presents (and I still have a couple to finish). And the house is a wreck, and the laundry’s piled up. So I probably should work on all that so I can relax later this week in a clean house. But even the prospect of working on that stuff all day doesn’t bother me because I don’t have to do it if I don’t want to. I can do nothing all day! I have no deadline! I am finally free.
posted by Lisa at 12/19/2004 10:09:00 AM
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