1998 december 21

homemade

i could be like the rest of the world.

i could talk about the historic impeachment of the elected president of the united states. i could talk about the bombing of iraq that seems to have made a bit of a mess but not a whole lot more no matter what the strategists try to tell me. i could talk about that woman in texas who gave birth to octuplets and had to spend the last two weeks of her pregnancy upside down so the babies wouldn�t slide out [what a trooper she was, quoth her doctor]. i could talk about any number of earth shattering, globally important concepts but i'm not going to. why? because this is all about me and quite honestly, me is sick and tired of the whole damn world just at the moment.

on the up side, i think i finally have the christmas stuff under control.

every year i try to make the gifts for at least two members of my family, sort of rotating them so no one gets a surplus of paintings or painted items or afghans or sculptures or any of the other bundle of things i have crafted over the years. this year the mothers were the recipients of the handmade gifts; i quilted a lap rug for gene's mom and painted a nutcracker for mine. both turned out much better than i had anticipated and i was rather reluctant to let them go. good thing i was filled with the christmas spirit or i might have just kept them and made a quick run to the mall to find something generic for the mothers in my world.

i spent saturday printing and writing the last of the christmas cards. i keep trying to cut down my christmas card list but so far i show little success; twenty seven cards are in the mail as i write this, and seven are due to be handed over in person at a party tonight. i should have scanned one where i didn't smear one of the ornaments but oh well, at least you now have evidence i am not perfect. i started making my cards about three years ago and now i am completely addicted to it. i used to love going to the store and picking out the perfect card, the one that screamed HOLIDAY!! at the same time it screamed claire!, but they became harder and harder to find and whenever i did find one i adored, i invariably received three just like it in my own mail. so i graduated to frantically making cards at the last minute. the last three were carved block cuts but i was having a natural mood this year and used some cedar i stole from the swag at the office as my print.

in other christmas creativity news, this is the first year i don't feel compelled to go wild in the baking department. i'm not quite sure why as making at least ten different kinds of cookies each christmas is built into my genetic code. since i was a small child, i have sung the litany of cookies starting the beginning of december: sugar cookies, chocolate cookies, a bar cookie, an almond cookie, a jelly filled cookie, gingerbread, a multicolored cookie [either swirls or checkerboards or stripes], pecan sandies, two slots open for whatever new and exciting cookie recipe caught my fancy in the preceding year. it was completely ridiculous, especially the years i was single. i was handing out cookies for weeks, to friends, officemates, family, anyone who dared come to the door, strangers at the gas station. maybe that is why i feel the need to stop, i don�t want to end up as the cookie lady, a small town attraction for the tourists.

well, maybe just one batch of sugar cookies, claire