holiday whiplash

The big holiday is finally over and thank heavens. Christmas is always hectic for me since both my husband and I work in retail, but this Christmas got sucked into some sort of insane vortex of christmas-crazy. The two weeks preceding Christmas were about as crazy at work as they could possibly be. We were incredible understaffed and I was grabbing as much overtime as I could handle. My hubby was working a lot of (unpaid-he's salaried) overtime as well and we barely saw each other. Add into that all the shopping that was left to do, decorating, and knitting. Whew!

Then my grandmother passed away on December 23rd. I wish I had a picture I could post of her here, but the most recent picture I posess of her was in my pre-digital age and I haven't scanned in any pictures from that era. She had been declining in health for quite some time so it was by no means a shock, but still heartbreaking, especially being so close to the holidays. Last minute plans had to get thrown together to either postpone, hasten, or shorten the Christmas celebrations and make travel arrangements. (She, and most of my extended family, lived in Missouri.) So halfway across the country we (my hubby, sister, and her fiance) trekked overnight on Christmas day. We drove 30 hours in the course of less than three days. It was, to say the least, rushed. In a way, it was also bittersweet. We got to see lots of family that we hadn't seen in years, but such a sad event to bring us all together.

As soon as we got back into town I took down my Christmas tree. I usually leave it up until New Years-ish, but not this year. I don't really feel like celebrating and it was almost dead anyway. I didn't really manage to finish many Christmas knits and in all the rush, the ones I did finish I forgot to take pictures of before wrapping. I don't mean to sound all woe-is-me or anything, but this Christmas was....well.....different. I don't want to say it was a bad Christmas because the abbreviated celebration we had was wonderful. Oh well.

I wrapped up half-finished knits because I have every intention of finishing them immediately. In fact, I am not allowing myself to start my fair isle mittens until they are done. I have half a scarf, one sock, and one and a half legwarmers to finish. Wish me luck.