Up to my ears

Wow, time flies quickly at the holidays doesn't it?  Thanksgiving was a week ago already.  We had a nice time in Newton, Mass at my aunt's house, catching up with family, taking the traditional post-meal walk to a local park to see the tree planted for my grandfather many years ago, and of course, eating:

Ooh!  I forgot to take a picture of the dessert I made but this is what you do:  Melt 2 cups of white chocolate chips, fold in 1 1/2 cups roasted, salted almonds and 1 1/2 cups craisins.  Drop by spoonfuls onto waxed paper and put in fridge for 20 minutes.  YUM!  They were a big hit.

This year Paul and I decided to stay overnight in a hotel instead of making the 3-hour trip each way all in one day.  We stayed at the same hotel as my sister and 3 nephews so it was nice to watch them playing in the pool and then having breakfast with them the next day.  My youngest nephew, age 9, kept saying, "I love this place!" since they had a free candy/snack bar from 5-7pm as well as all you can eat breakfast with every kind of breakfast food imaginable.  His plate:  3 pastries, frosted flakes and a soda.  He wanted to go back for more but my sister had to draw the line somewhere - so he picked wheat toast with cream cheese.   That's kudos to my sister -  he knows what's healthy!

Here is what adults think is great about the hotel:

Silly!

Crabtree & Evelyn products!
(I totally took them all home.)

Ok, so now it's after Thanksgiving and I'm in full on what-has-to-get-done-for-Christmas mode.  My knitting gift list seems to be growing.  I've got that oh-i-could-totally-knit-fifty-things-by-Christmas frame of mind because "It's still November."  Ha!  Until tomorrow.

The good news is I made a pair of thumbless mitts for Benjamin and Michaela's new cousin:

And I only have the toes to do on the socks for I'm-not-telling-you-who:

I know.  They look totally weird - like the leg is too narrow or something.  But, that's because the leg of the sock has  a ribbed pattern.  When they are on a foot, I'll take a picture and they will look normal.

Then I have to finish something else already started for someone else.  Start and finish something for another someone. And make something out of these for three other someones:

Don't you just love that?  You're totally getting no information.
Needless to say, I'll soon be up to my ears with knitting.

Then there is tree shopping and shopping shopping. For tree shopping, we help Paul's mom get her tree and so we get ours at the same time.  She likes to go to a local fire house in order to support them, but we have to go early in December before they run out (last year we got there too late) so it looks like we may be doing that this weekend.  And we'll likely make it a group trip and bring Paul's brother and his family (including my two doodlebugs, M & B) with us!  For shopping shopping,  Paul and I try to pick a strategic Sunday morning as early as possible since it seems to be less crowded.  Preferably the Sunday after a Saturday night snowstorm.  That year was the best for getting all our shopping done with no crowds.  Took the 4 wheel drive truck to the mall and saw about 4 other people there.  I hope that happens this year.

In Book News:
I read The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes and really enjoyed it!  A thought provoking story about a man who reflects on his high school/college years with friends and when some of those friends come back into his life much later, how his perception of what happened is re-framed.  That's it in one sentence.  A fairly quick read - the book is only 176 pages, but it's packed with so much story and things to think about.  It's not my usual mystery/suspense/detective book packed with action, which seem to be my favorite, but it was great.  I think it would make a nice holiday gift if you know someone who loves to read. Click up there or here to get it on Amazon:

And now I'm on to another mystery/suspense book, but I'll tell you about that another time.

That's it.  I'm off to knit.