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Michael & Dixie have been visiting for a few days now. I’m always really happy to see them, although I admit that I enjoy Michael a bit more than Dixie. He doesn’t slobber, or pee in the house even if he’s really excited, and it’s a pleasure going for a walk with him. 🙂
Before they arrived I had a chat with Red. Last time Dixie was here she kind of ran roughshod over him. I told him that this time he should remember that he’s older and it’s his house, so he should establish his seniority over her. I fear he took me a little bit too seriously.
Outside the two of them are fine. Inside, they get along okay as long as there’s no food involved, but both get possessive about eating, and sometimes even about food dishes being on the floor.
 At one point Dixie scrounged up an OLD rawhide bone from somewhere. This thing had been hiding in my house for at least four years. She brought it into the living room and was happily chewing away on this dried piece of old leather.
Now, Red’s a picky eater, a dog who’s particular about his treats. He never even once chewed on a rawhide. But as soon as Dixie got up for a drink of water, Red went and picked up that rawhide and said, “This is my house, this is my rawhide and you can’t have it. It doesn’t matter that I don’t want the stupid bone. What matters is that you don’t have it.” Red defended that bone with growls and snaps anytime Dixie came within 5 feet of him. Eventually I took it away and put it on the top of the refrigerator where no one would have it.
Michael did bring one of Dixie’s beds up with him, but Dixie didn’t like it. Never once saw her lay down in it. Red’s bed, however, was quite suitable to her. She has literally spent hours curled up in it. 
Did I mention that Red’s a 16-pound Lowchen and Dixie’s an 85-pound Bloodhound?
Later, when Dixie went to visit her Rottie friend, Red decided he’d snooze in her bed.
We’ve also had great fun visiting with Baxter, my Tibetan Terrier grandson. He’ll sleep anywhere, although Amanda’s lap is a favorite bed when he’s not at home.
Visiting up at Amanda & Ryan’s, we had not 3 dogs, but 4! They were dog sitting for Dante, a 115-pound blue Great Dane. Dante & Dixie had great fun slobbering all over each other as they wrestled in the backyard. (Why didn’t I snap a picture of that?!) Baxter wanted a piece of that action, but Red just wanted to come inside away from those two horses.
After spending a night up there, Red was more comfortable playing in the yard with his canine buds. Besides, Dante was at home, so there was only Baxter and Dixie. It had rained all night and morning, so by the time those dogs came inside, all 3 needed a bath. Baxter and Dixie each got one; Red’s a country guy who doesn’t get that many baths; he just got a good toweling off. All dogs took long naps.
There are other dog stories from this visit, but they’re not in a very holiday vein, so I’m not telling them. At least not right now.
I have long known that memories are fallible. Very fallible. If asked about my memories posted here, I’ve been clear that these are how I remember things, and my two sisters may remember differently.
Today I celebrated Christmas with those two sisters and their families. Alma, the eldest, had read my Christmas eve blog post and told me that I remembered Mom’s Christmas stocking wrong. “Yeah?” I said. “What do you think they were like?”
Alma reached into her bag and said, “This.”
Trust me, Alma didn’t whip this stocking up. This is her original stocking. As soon as I saw it, I said, “Oh, yeah! I remember them now! They’re just like Mom’s napkins & table runner that I have!”
But I would have sworn they were calico. Huh.
Alma then said, “I don’t remember any toothbrushes, either.”
Since she was clearly dead on with the stockings, I’m betting she’s right about the toothbrushes, too. I guess it was Peg/Mom who came up with that particular utilitarian tradition. Go figure.
We both agreed, however, that Judy was mistaken when, after NOT having read my earlier post, she told a story about how she got this ballerina music box for Christmas and knocked it over and it started playing. That was MY music box. Both Alma & Judy assured me I would NOT have gone and woken up Mom, however, as that would have meant certain tongue lashing.
So who knows how that scenario really ended?
Your turn – Share one of your holiday memories, whether or not it’s family-tested.
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Other posts you might enjoy…
 Christmas Music Box
 Christmas stockings
Early in our marriage, we spent a few years of tubular living. Our trailer 12′ x 60′ with an 8×10 push-out addition. This is not a lot of space for two adults, a baby, and two St. Bernards.
When Amanda was a toddler, she was very prone to ear infections. These frequently went from she was fine and happy to she was feverish and screaming in pain in a matter of a few hours. All too often this led to midnight trips to the ER for treatment.
That’s what happened around December 23rd in the late 70s. But this time she developed a nasty cough along with her other symptoms. So in addition to a course of antibiotics, she also got a cough medicine. With the excitement of the impending arrival of Christmas, Amanda was also not sleeping well, and the cough medicine led to toddler hallucinations after bedtime on Christmas Eve. I assure you, that was not fun!
Russell had built a toy box for her for Christmas. We didn’t own any fancy woodworking tools, so the toy box was a simple pine affair. But remember I said we lived in a trailer? It’s pretty hard to hide something that big in a home that size. My idea was to hide it in plain sight – simply put it in the tip-out and cover it with a blanket. Treat it like that big thing was always there, and the child wouldn’t notice it. Believe it or not, that actually worked well.
So back to Christmas Eve. Amanda’s screaming, not because she’s in pain, but because “there’s birdie feet on my blanket.” YIKES!! It was after midnight when I finally got her calmed back down and laid down (again) for the night.
Here’s the thing. Santa couldn’t come until after she was asleep, of course. And if I had to walk back and forth in front of her bedroom door carrying things and she wasn’t sound asleep, I’d wake her and both blow the Santa thing and risk more birdie feet. But I was exhausted, too. I had to get some sleep ASAP. (Side note: Amanda wasn’t the best sleeper under normal circumstances, and I’ve always needed a lot of sleep. She did learn early on that she had to stay in her bed and be quiet, but she didn’t have to necessarily sleep immediately upon being put down.) What was the answer to this puzzle?
I put on my warm bathrobe over my jammies, went to bed and turned my side of the electric blanket on high. I figured I’d be sweating enough to wake me up in a few hours, and I could make sure that Santa filled the stockings, placed the presents under the tree, and enjoy the milk & cookies.
That, too, worked like a charm. Christmas morning arrived to happy smiles all around, and the toy box was a delight. And well used for decades.
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Other posts you might enjoy…
Christmas Music Box Christmas stockings
After about 18 hours of frenetic work, I have finished the rayon chenille throw I’ll be giving my friends for Christmas.
As planned, I used two strands of a relatively fine gauge rayon chenille for both warp and weft. It wasn’t as hard as it might have been — probably a bit easier than a doubleweave in rayon chenille.
I still have to double twist the fringe before I can wet finish it, so it’s not yet achieved its final drapiness, and I can’t yet tell if it’s really much thicker than it would have been with single strands. But it’s essentially done.
Today’s December 20. I still have to put lots of things away before my son and his bloodhound, Dixie arrive in about 36 hours. I haven’t wrapped anything, haven’t put up the tree, and actually, still have to order a few things that I’ll get electronic notification of to give to the recipient. (That would have been true no matter when I ordered them — I’m not so crass I would have put it off this long otherwise.) And I still have to get groceries in the house. Yikes! Fortunately, Michael is a very agreeable sort, and he’ll like decorating the tree and going shopping with me.
I do want to get some more Christmas stories on here, but not tonight. It’s time for putting my feet up and vegging out with a glass of wine.
Your turn: Are you buying less for holiday gifts this year? Making more?
Like lots of folks around the country and around the world, I don’t have much expendable income this year. I’m struggling to pay my bills each month. So it was simply not an option for me to do my usual Christmas buying. Admittedly, I generally overspend, buying lots more than is reasonable, but not this year.
Although I don’t have lots of time, I do have lots of yarn. So I’ve been weaving, and weaving, and weaving. And weaving. I did make some other, much quicker presents as well, and several people will be getting a Sticks calendar from Margaret, but mostly I’ll be given my handwoven scarves and throws. Like Janet of Scarf-A-Day, on several days I did weave a scarf as a present. I’d love to show you pictures of them here, but since the recipients are likely to see it, I’m not going to share them with you until after the gifts are given.
 I do have some dear friends that don’t use the internet, however, so I can tell you about their present. I’m making a rayon chenille throw for this lovely couple. Since my Macomber loom is still in the process of being set up, I wanted to weave it on the borrowed Harrisville Designs before I return it.
Because rayon chenille is pretty much always done in tabby, I could do it in doubleweave on my counterbalance loom. But rayon chenille presents its own challenges when weaving. It’s really smooth and silky in a finished piece, leading you to think that the problem would be that it was too slippery to be easy. In fact, the opposite is true. The chenille is very “sticky” with the threads tending to clump together. I think doubleweave would leave me with too many long, unwoven strands of warp or weft that would need to be fixed after the throw came off the loom.
So the Harrisville Designs seemed the way to go. But wait? Are there enough heddles? To weave 36″ wide at 16 ends per inch, I’d need 576 heddles. The Harrisville has 400. I have extra Texsolv heddles that I’d ordered for my counterbalance and could put on the Harrisville temporarily, but of course, they’re too short. I could temporarily move heddles from the Macomber to the Harrisville, but of course they’re too long.
I’m left with putting the extra heddles on my counterbalance and doing a doubleweave rayon chenille. I’ll get to it as soon as I have the other presents done, since I won’t see these friends till a few days after Christmas. Earlier this week I spent a few hours installing the heddles in preparation.
Today I finished the last present that will be given on Christmas day, woven with a very bulky organic cotton yarn (550 yards per pound). And while I was weaving it, I had a brainstorm. Or maybe it’s a crazy idea. Only time will tell.
What about using two strands of my 1500 yards-per-pound rayon chenille for both warp and weft? Instead of warping at 16 ends per inch, I could safely warp at 9 or 10 ends per inch, and the Harrisville would have plenty of heddles. Plus the finished throw will be thicker than single strands would be, making it warmer for my friends. If it wasn’t already December 19, with my son arriving home in a mere 50 hours, I would have sought the advice of Su Butler, the country’s foremost authority on rayon chenille.
I just finished preparing the warp on my warping board. I’ll start dressing the loom after dinner. I’ll be keeping my fingers crossed the whole time that this wasn’t a totally stupid idea, and that it won’t take me lots more time and energy to make it work. I’ll let you know when it’s done.
Update…
 I have the rayon chenille warp wound on the back beam. Time consuming, tedious, and now my back aches. I’m going to go take a bath with rosemary epsom salts, then off to bed.
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At one point Dixie scrounged up an OLD rawhide bone from somewhere. This thing had been hiding in my house for at least four years. She brought it into the living room and was happily chewing away on this dried piece of old leather.
