The Day After

It's finally done. Christmas has come and gone. No matter how much I curse the mall traffic, the ever multiplying dust bunnies under the sofa, the LAST last minute gift I forgot to pick up on the way home from work, and naturally the ungodly cost of it all...I always feel a bit down the day after.

Dad and the rest of my family came for Christmas Eve dinner. So much preparation!! I wanted it to be a traditional Polish "Wigilia" or Christmas Eve dinner. Wesolych Swiat! Bozego Narodzenia! That means "Merry Christmas" in Polish. The menu wasn't completely traditional. Stuffed mushrooms, shrimp, scallops, eafood chowder, haddock stuffed with lobster, peirogies, green beans, potatoes. It was a lot of work to pull it all off, but I think everyone enjoyed the meal and the company.

Dad gave me a very nice gift, a cookbook of traditional Polish recipes, the same cookbook I remember Mom using when I was a little girl. My copy is bright and shiny new, while I remember her's being stain covered and dog-eared, well used. It's a gift I will treasure.

Brian spent Thursday night with us and then again Christmas night. Always nice having him stay in the "suite" on the second floor. We watched silly movies and Red Sox DVDs and relived the joy that was World Series 2004.

Now it's Sunday night and the snow is falling outside. The weather maniacs say maybe a foot before morning. Yuck. Pretty to watch it fall, but miserable to shovel and clean off the cars. My neighbor was out shoveling earlier. Usually she clears off the entire street in front of her house and most of her front yard. I always feel so inferior as I clean off a small path from the front door to the driveway.

Finished knitting socks for Christmas gifts just in the nick of time. I was sewing up the toe of Dan's just about 1 hour before dinner yesterday. All the kids seemed happy. Kathryn loved the pink yellow and orange stripes. Just her colors. Steven put his on immediately. Left his sweat socks in a ball under the tree and happily slid the blue white grey stripes on is feet. Mom loved her sock knitting supplies. I hope she has fun with it.

Now I am back to my Debbie Bliss hooded cabled cardigan. Wondering if there is a quicker way to knit cables. Not sure if using the cable needle slows things down or is actually quicker. Will experiment more.