Christmas, Christmas

Christmas, Christmas time is near,
Time for toys and time for cheer,
We’ve been good, but we can’t last,
Hurry Christmas, hurry fast!

Let’s be honest, when I think about Christmas. I remember the Chipmunks. I played the original soundtrack until the cassette tape broke. Not the remake. Now that the day has arrived. I can say what I’ve been working on!

I planned to make hats for my sister and nieces! It took a bit of planning. I didn’t like the first hats I made, they were too fat and chunky. I ended up changing the yarn around some and ended up with what I have posted below. I hope they like them… At the point when I started writing this post, it’s the beginning of the week and I’m still struggling to finish the last hat.

I learned to crochet over COVID isolation and I think I’ve gotten better. This is why I decided to change the hats after I started. My sister likes purple. My oldest niece liked gray, the middle niece liked pink, and the youngest niece liked blue. So I’m attempting to make each of them a hat. They live in Florida where it’s very hot most of the time so I was hoping to make a hat they could still use despite the temperature. For the record, my head is VERY fat so sizing on myself makes it hard. I don’t want it to fall off their heads.

I used Christmas tins because I felt like boxes and wrapping paper would be a waste. I honestly will probably switch to wrapping clothes next year if I can afford it. I also bought the girls each a bamboo cutting board so that they could do their own charcuterie board spreads. One of the meals we’ve got planned for the trip is that. I don’t think I’ll use a cutting board for that meal. It’ll probably end up being a lot of Christmas plates I picked up to be festive. Hopefully, after the trip, I’ll be writing and uploading some posts.

My MIL and a family friend made homemade vanilla extract out of some lovely beans and vodka. I’m giving each of the girls a bottle as a present. For our last (PreCOVID) Christmas, I made them some sugar bath scrub. At least two of my Christmas gifts are homemade so I feel a bit self-conscious.

I also got the girls a bottle of wine each. It wasn’t a lot in total. We’re really tight on money this year. I was thrifty with getting wrapping materials and even got some Dollar Tree Christmas scarves to wrap up their bundles. I don’t think it’s something they’ll wear, but they were cute blue snowflake scarves so it’s festive.

As I said before. I guess I’m just really self-conscious about pleasing people. Food is usually my love language. I know that presents are sometimes other people’s love language, so I don’t want to mess things up. People keep telling me it’s the thought that counts, but I worry that homemade presents might be seen as cheap. My MIL helped so much with the vanilla beans and vodka. Both ingredients can be so expensive. Sadly, the extra needs to seep for another month and a half so we won’t get to try it yet.

Anywho, that was a looooong ramble today. Merry Christmas to everyone~!