I just wanted you to know that.

One of my daughters – no guesses which one – bought me this book for Christmas….

I don’t know what is more scary…that she thinks I’m Mrs Potato Head (which I most certainly am NOT) or that she thought I was once Barbie! No sireee – I’m vertically challenged in the leg area, so that certainly wasn’t me. Big hair? No way.

I’m a little intrigued as to what awaits me in this literary delicacy.

It could be bad….said daughter fell off her chair laughing when she gave it to me.

Kids? Who’d have ’em? This one was only saved because she also gave me some yarn – proof that she isn’t all bad and that I have done something right in bringing her up!

Helen

Wishing you and those who you love all the blessings of the Christmas season.

Helen

My husband isn’t a great present buyer – he’s been known in the past to give me things like a bread knife for Christmas. Over the years he’s taken to either asking me for very detailed instructions or better still encouraged me to buy whatever I’d really like to have. Please don’t think any the worse of him for this – he’s a wonderful husband, but present buying just isn’t his forte. And that’s fine. I love him just the way he is…as long as I don’t get another bread knife anytime soon.

This year when he asked me, I realized that I really didn’t want anything much at all. In a rash moment I bought some new sock knitting needles, but really, truly I don’t want anything. If truth be told, I actually want less.

I have a backlog of books to read, yarn to knit with and clothes and fabric to take me into the next millennium. I don’t want anything more. I’m happy with what I have. It’s more than enough and I’m very, very lucky to have what I have. My family are for the most par happy and healthy, we’ve weathered the storms that have been thrown at us over the last few years and I’m actually still very happy with the man I married 18 years ago. That’s worth a lot isn’t it? I can honestly say – hand on heart – that I’m content. More than content. Blessed.

I know that we will face more difficult times at some point in the future, but we’ll deal with those when they happen. There are so many people in the world who don’t have a fraction of what I have.

So with that in mind I’m going to give my Christmas present to Medecin sans Frontiers this year. You might want to check out the Yarn Harlot, who is trying to raise $2 million for them.

Happy Christmas Eve everybody!

Helen

In between all the shopping, cooking, present wrapping, cleaning and other general stuff that goes on before Christmas I’ve been stealing a little time now and then to do this:

mmm tea and sock knitting – my favourite! When accompanied by a nice play on the radio or an audio book, this is possibly the most calming activity there is.

I’ve also just finished reading this…

It’s the same every year – I love the house being decorated for Christmas, but the clutter and all the stuff (old and new) does start to get to me after a while and I’m itching to have a big clear out. Obviously that isn’t possible at the moment, but I’m keeping the feeling at bay following Francine Jay’s one-a-day principle. This involves finding one article every day thay can be rehomed, recycled or thrown away. So far I’ve got rid of several files of old schoolwork belonging to the children, a file full of old proof-editing notes of mine, rehomed an old cardigan with my mother and thrown away all the past sell-by dated items in my baking drawer (with appropriate shame!). My son also suddenly decided to become a tidy person and presented me with a whole lot of toys that he no longer needs. It’s a shame he didn’t do this 6 weeks ago, when I could have taken them to our church bazaar, but I’m not complaining. If any of my children shows the slightest sign of being tidy (rather than following after their father, the arch-chaot) I shall open a bottle of champagne. We are getting dangerously near that point with said son – it is all rather blissful and I do hope it lasts!

On that happy note, I shall return to my cookie baking and trying to think of what to feed the unspecified number of teenagers who will be descending on us this evening on their way out to more exciting things than are on offer here in the house on the hill.

Happy Christmas preparations to one and all – and don’t forget to take a little time out to do something nice for yourself – you’ll feeel much better if you do!

Helen

This is going to be a bit of a bitty post….lots of odds and ends….

First though, I have a WINNER!!! 

Nobody got the right answer – which was, by the way, that it was my 500th post! Wow – hard to believe that I’ve managed to witter on for 500 posts, but there you are, that’s how it goes!!

I put the closest answers in a hat and my son pulled one out …..and the winner is….Nancy!!

I’ll email you Nancy as I need to get your mailing address. Congratulations!!

Last night we had a big teenager related bust up at home. Usually I end up like a wet dishrag after one of these encounters – and mostly I come away from them feeling like I’m a bad parent and I get everything wrong. Well for once I actually think I handled the situation right. Rather than ranting and raving as I normally do, I stated my point (without shouting) and informed the offender of the consequences of her actions and then told her to please remove herself from my sight (as I was trying to work on French with her younger brother). There was a fair bit of screaming and a refusal to eat dinner – fair enough, it was her choice and I left her to it. Four hours later a recalcitrant teenager asked me to test her on French before her test today. I did this quietly with no reference to all former antics. She was astonishingly perfect – 5 pages of vocab word perfect.( Isn’t it amazing what some people can do when the computer and phone aren’t accessible?).

She then thanked me, apologized and told me that she wouldn’t behave in the way she had again.

I almost fainted with shock. This is a child who NEVER apologizes. I still can’t quite get over it. Maybe there is a light at the end of the tunnel after all.

Otherwise I’m still finishing off the Christmas preparations. The presents are bought, so hopefully there won’t need to be any more trips into Zürich. Now it’s just down to food shopping. I’m doing one small piece of Christmas baking every day. Yesterday some Christmas Mailanderli cookies and today I’ll make some sausage rolls before I head out to my son’s school carol service.

And it’s snowing, so it couldn’t really be more Christmassy.

I’ll leave you with this little snippet, gleaned from Facebook. It made me smile!

Helen