We had a call from a niece who was phoning around the country trying to find someone who had heard from the family in Thailand. We haven’t heard, but are cheering ourselves with the knowledge that, first, they live in a different and perhaps safer area, and second, Thailand is (according to the Wall Street Journal) handling the emergency very well.

Ozarque’s Journal has been discussing the notion of whether we in the United States are in any way responsible for the  inequitable distribution of wealth that makes natural disasters so much more distastrous in some countries than in others. Here’s that discussion, if you are up for something serious: http://www.livejournal.com/users/ozarque/60853.html  If you are making New Year’s Resolutions, then you may find some good ideas there. Silkenshine has also made some good resolutions. She quit smoking last year, so we can see that she is a good example for the whole resolution process.

I don’t make New Year’s Resolutions, but I do make goals for the year. Last year I succeeded with most of my goals. I am going to recommit to the things I did not accomplish last year, and add a couple of new goals. I am also going to do what the Grand Plan calls “clearing,” which is a trip around my house, notebook and pencil in hand, noting down all the things I would like to change. Some of those things are strictly housekeeping — areas that need mending or painting or cleaning or rearranging. But sometimes, while doing this, you realize that your pantry is filled with things you shouldn’t eat or your closet is filled with things that no longer reflect your way of life, or that there is evidence in your home of disorganization or procrastination or workaholism or other things worth changing.

Since we have been slothful and celebratory all week at our house, I also have a lot of housework to do. My wonderful kids did the grocery shopping yesterday, so I do not have to do that, but the overall mess level is way too high for me. I also have one more feast to prepare.

Once I have done these things, I hope to tempt my family out to the First Night celebration our community holds downtown on New Year’s Eve. The weather is so mild this year, we will not have to worry about freezing to death if we want to watch the parade.

Here are the words and Midi for “What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve?” This is a nice little song. Clay Aiken has recorded it, but why would you listen to him when you could hear Ella Fitzgerald sing it? Well, make your own choice on that. In any case, it gives you an alternative to “Auld Lang Syne,” which can only be sung right at midnight anyway.

http://www.brownielocks.com/NewYearsEveSong.html

The Poster Queen and I were feeling apologetic about the low sales figures so far this week, until the Empress laughingly reminded me that they were five times higher than the same week last year. Nonetheless, it is slow enough that I am doing inventory. This is how we beguile the slow times in January: we count everything in the store. And — while people are shopping at the places that hold post-Christmas sales — I might as well get started.

My husband is a machinist. His workplace approximates my mental image of Hell. I earn as much as he does, for working — beginning at a reasonable hour — in a pleasant, quiet place full of toys and books. So I suppose I must forgive him for the evil cackle he emitted when I told him I was doing inventory.

He knows that my threshhold for boredom is very low. He knows that after about three days of taking inventory, I cannot help reading the want ads. After five days, I am giving serious thought to all the different causes of death, considering which might be the most pleasant. Not that I am contemplating suicide, I assure you. It is just that repetitive actions like counting the number of heart-and-gingham borders, and then the number of pink-and-red heart borders, and then the number of — well, thoughts of death come unbidden into my mind.

I think freezing to death would not be too bad. And it often seems possible in January. And my family is home for much of the month, making it especially easy for me to feel sorry for myself while I count stickers, knowing that they are home drinking hot chocolate and playing games.

Thank goodness it is not yet January. It is, however, getting close. Here is “Deck the Halls,” which reminds us that the old year is passing away fast, and bids us hail the new.

http://www.night.net/christmas/deck-halls.html

While I do inventory, #2 daughter will be home minding #2 son, who has been grounded for the remainder of the break, and working on her giant-cable sweater, which is turning out very nicely. The assymetrical cable, just at the edge of the front and the back, looks a bit like a scarf thrown carelessly over the shoulder.

Yes, I have noticed that all the things we are currently knitting are in dark, gloomy colors which do not show up well on this blog.

My grandmother refused to knit things in colors like this. If you asked her to knit you a  navy blue sweater, you had better be prepared  to get something in a nice bright orange. But a good gray sweater is a nice thing to have. You can deck the halls in it, feeling cozy and chic, or you can take inventory, letting its somber colors express your feelings about excessive counting. 

Granted that I am not entirely happy with the results of my current color work, I do enjoy the process. I know that many people do not. And, hey, knitting is just for fun. You don’t have to do anything you don’t like. (Except, of course, for my determination to make a variegated sweater.) However, if you would like to try color work and hesitate, or think it is too hard, I have some tips for you.

First, if you do not like charts, there are some things you can do to make them easier to work with. In the indecipherable picture above, you cannot tell that I am using magnets, but they are my secret weapon for charts. A big flat magnet goes under the page with the chart, and a long skinny magnet goes on top, pointing out the row. Here is a slightly clearer picture. I have angled the front magnet so you can see it better. The magnet under the page is a large American flag one made for putting on your car. You can also buy sheets of magnet paper at the office supply store, or apply magnet backing to your favorite picture with a Xyron machine. Any way you arrange it, the basic idea is that they mark your row so you don’t get lost.

Next, you use a row counter. The little blue thing on the needle here is a row counter. It has little numbers that you change at the end of each row. Thus, when you are on Row 29 of your chart, you have a reminder. With a magnet under Row 29 and a marker on your needle reminding you that you are on Row 29, your chances of doing Row 28 twice, or half of one row and the other half of the other, are greatly reduced.

If you are using only two colors in a row, as is customary for Fair Isle, then put one ball on the left side of your chair and the other ball on the other side. Hold the main color in your right hand and the secondary color in your left. Now you can easily strand and weave, and you will have no long “floats” on the back of your work. You will notice that you must be able to knit with either hand in order to do this. Here is the back of the work. Granted, you cannot see it very clearly, but if there were long floats, you could. Suffice it to say that it is a smoothly woven surface.

If you are using more than two colors in a row, you should use bobbins, which are another topic entirely.

My final tip is this: if you find the yarns getting twisted up, or if both colors get long stretches in the same row (which is the case with this chart) then stop now and then and shift the yarn. Move the left-hand yarn to the right and vice versa. Untwist them. If you mentally plan on doing this every now and then, you will not find it irritating when it occurs.

I hope this has been helpful. If not, enjoy this song instead: http://www.always-safe.com/boychild.html It is “Long Time Ago in Bethlehem,” or “Mary Boy-Child.” This traditional Carribean carol was the number one hit song at the end of 1957, when Harry Belafonte recorded it, and his is probably still the best recording around.

#2 daughter felt that our other dog ought to get his picture posted, even if he can’t wear glasses. In fact, this is our very stupid, though lovable, dog. He went to dog school and enjoyed it, and in six weeks learned “sit” and “stay.” He cannot do any other tricks at all. Never mind. We still love him.

Third time may be the charm for the variegated yarn. Having cast on and unravelled twice with traditional multi-yarn Fair Isle, I decided to try a single Alice Starmore chart with just two colors. Here I am, not yet through the first repeat, and I am at least disliking it less than I did the first two tries. There is some semblance of a pattern emerging.

The sensible thng would be to frog the entire thing one last time, plan to make lots of socks, and move on to the planned Fair Isle with my new Christmas yarn. However, it has, as my mother says, become a Quest. That is her expression for anything people continue on with past the point of sensibleness, just because they have already invested so much time in it that they can’t stand to cut bait and give up.

So I am going to go ahead and spend six weeks making this sweater which I will then have to wear, even if I still dislike it, because by then I will have spent so long making the blasted thing. However, this experience will remind me, next time I see variegated yarn on sale and think I should try it, not to.

We have so many new games at our house that we are spending even more time playing them than we usually spend on games. Risk Godstorm, the DVD version of Trivial Pursuit (Pop Culture, so I am laughably ignorant and my kids can be scornful. I just answer all the sports questions “Michael Jordan,” since I know that he is in fact a ball player of some sort. All questions about rap music I answer “Eminem” and TV questions I answer mostly with “Quentin Tarantino.” This strategy has allowed me to lose all games so far), Jackstraws, and the 1000-piece jigsaw puzzle are consuming our time together. When the kids are off with their friends, they are playing video games. In this way, we are staving off the return to serious undertakings.

We are also still eating Christmas leftovers. We have not been to the gym, although #2 daughter and I did the first few segments of our ballet workout DVD yesterday. My husband is sleeping so late that I don’t even see him before I leave for work.

All in all, it is a hotbed of riotous living over here. Since we are being competitive, here is a jolly carol about the competition of the holly and the ivy, thought to symbolize the male and female characters. In other words, it was the girls against the boys. In this case, the holly won, and all the verses are about the holly, with the ivy being entirely forgotten.

http://www.rienzihills.com/ChristmasSing/hollyandivy.htm

It is said that this carol, collected in Gloucestershire by Cecil Sharp, is one of a group of carols about this annual holly-vs-ivy competition, but I do not know of any others. This one was declared one of the two Carols of the Year for 2002, when the organizer of the Carol of the Year event said that it was being lost and was rarely sung any more. It would be a sad thing if we lost this fine song. It is very lively and fun.

Here is our Christmas tree. I will be going back to work today (and back to the gym, too, I swear), but the rest of the family is still on vacation. So it will be nice to come home to the tree and the relaxed, playing people. Hmm… Maybe there will also be a tidy house and a healthy dinner waiting when I get home.

Okay, enough dreaming.

Son-in-Law has received his next assignment. He will be on a “fast attack” out of Groton, Connecticut. This means he will be at sea for six months of the year, while #1 daughter stays alone in Groton. She is a grown-up, though. She will be 22 next month. She can look after herself. Or she can just come back here while her husband is on the sub.

Here is a picture of the boat in question:  http://navysite.de/ssn/ssn757.htm  And here is the surprising thing I found when I went to look for a picture of the boat: http://enchanted.iwarp.com/alexandria/

Not that we have spent our entire holiday worrying about our kid. My husband also taught one of our dogs to wear glasses. We do not know why he wanted to do this, but it must have seemed like a good idea at the time. I think he could have taught her to do something more useful, like fetch the paper.

Today’s song is “Gesu Bambino,” a carol written in 1917 by Pietro Yon.

http://www.saministries.org/fhp/gesu_bambino.htm

Here it is arranged for violin, viola, and cello. We couldn’t come up with that at my house, but hey, if you have a little chamber orchestra on hand, it’s perfect.

http://www.violinonline.com/gesubambino.htm

My favorite recording of this beautiful song is by Kathleen Battle and Christopher Parkening, but there are many others, including instrumental recordings. It is not exactly a popular carol, but it should be. It is good for singing around the piano.

Yarn, Ho! Here is the Peruvian Highland wool I got for Christmas. I have 14 colors, and am doing a pattern which calls for 14 colors, so now I simply need to match them up. Is Jacaranda equivalent to Blue Mist? Can Allspice stand in for Cinnamon? The yarns called for in the pattern, and this yarn, all were named by some romantic person, though probably not the same one. But one man’s Flamenco may or may not be another man’s Autumn Peach. I guess I can lay them all out together to see what looks best, or use #2 son’s new Christmas set of 105 colored pencils to color in the chart with close matches to Peridot and Wisteria.

I will be doing this match-up in an exceedingly leisured and desultory way today, since it is Boxing Day. A little mild housework, church, and otherwise all we have planned is lolling around playing with our new toys.

Since today is the Feast of Stephen, the song for the day has to be “Good King Wenceslas,” who, you will doubtless recall, “Looked out on the Feast of Stephen.” http://www.cyberhymnal.org/htm/g/o/goodking.htm

And here is a picture of Saint Wenceslas:

He looks a bit young for the story, so I suppose this must have been an early image. By the time he became King of Bohemia and had the puissance to warm up the ground as he walked, he probably had a beard or something. He overthrew his grandmother’s regency when he was only 18, though, so I may be wrong on that.

Wenceslas was known for his kindness to the poor, and the song about him reminds us that “all who now will bless the poor shall themselves find blessing.”

This tune is a favorite for people who want to make new words. I don’t want to say “parody,” because often they are nothing of the sort. Here is one from Ozarque: http://www.livejournal.com/users/ozarque/58511.html

Here is one from, apparently, the Balefire Coven. I find it rather stupid: we are to believe, it seems, that some deer is out wandering around looking for fuel for its fire, that the King of Bohemia imagines that deer have houses, and that the Page was an Oak God in disguise. These guys ought to make up their own legends.

http://members.tripod.com/~Willow_Firesong/YulCarls/GoodKin1.html

Here is a political one (general rudeness about George Bush):

http://bootnewt.tripod.com/dumbkingw.htm

and another with more detail:

http://www.madkane.com/dont_blame_me.html

What is it about this tune that inspires people to make up new words? I don’t know. It could be something about St. Stephen’s Day itself, I suppose. Even here at our house, where we are reasonable about Christmas cheer, we are experiencing headaches (me), tummyaches (#2 son), and a disinclination to get up and go to church (everyone). Here, in an extreme example, are the lyrics to Elvis Costello’s “St. Stephen’s Day Murders”:

http://www.lyricsfind.com/e/elvis-costello/unknown-album/st-stephen’s-day-murders.php

I hope you don’t feel that way.

Have a wonderful Christmas! Here is the one song you can’t skip today, however many you sing: “Joy to the World” http://washingtonmo.com/christmas/lyric/1034.htm

The tune may or may not be by Handel. It may be by Lowell Mason. The words are by Isaac Watts, about whom I will someday tell you a most touching story. Not today, however, because now I must go witness the kids’ gifts and feed people and pack up the car for over the river and through the woods to Grandmother’s. Let joy be unconfined!

And here is a link to the kind people who let me use their “Merry Christmas” sign: http://www.christmaspast.info/

It is the day before Christmas, and I do not have to work! It is a miracle! Well, perhaps not a miracle, but a thrill. I have not had this day off for a decade. I am grateful to The Empress and That Man for thinking of it. I will therefore join the kids in picking up our feast and cleaning and decorating the house before we go to choir practice at the church at 4:30. We will have the feast between the services, and possibly afterwards as well.

I offer you a song today which you already know: “The Twelve Days of Christmas.” Many people are confused about the twelve days in question, if not about the song. Christmas begins at sunset tonight, and continues till Twelfth Night, which begins at sunset on January 5th. You have a grand party on Twelfth Night and eat up all the remaining holiday food. January 6th is Epiphany, the proper day to remove all holiday decorations and get back to whatever is your normal behavior.

I am open-minded. I will allow some leeway. Some people like to begin Carnival immediately after Epiphany, and not bother getting back to normal until Lent, or possibly Easter. Some do not follow the traditional celebration calendar at all, either because they have noticed that there is no scriptural basis for it or because they aren’t traditionalists. Some don’t count their days from sunset. Some people don’t even celebrate Christmas. That’s all fine. But if you want to follow the tradition, you might just as well know what it is.

 If you thought that tomorrow was the last day of Christmas, with the twelve days being some sort of shopping day countdown, then I am sorry, but you were wrong.

Here is the song: http://www.night.net/christmas/12-Days.html

There is lots of information at this site about the twelve days, the song, what a colly bird might be, and the controversy over whether or not the song has religous symbolism (I say it didn’t start out that way, but the church traditionally co-opts things for religious symbolism, so why not?): http://www.abcog.org/12days.htm

The Penguin Book of Carols says that this song had its origin in the parlor game we call “I Packed My Trunk,” where each player has to list all the things the previous player said, with an addition. And indeed many people even now use “The 12 Days of Christmas” as a sort of parlor game, assigning each person in the group one of the days so that they have to chime in with their day when it is time. There are people who would rather be boiled with the Christmas pudding than go through shenanigans like that. You know your own group best.

In any case, it is surely a day — or at least a night — for fun and frolic. Go to a candlelight service. Open presents. Read “A Visit from St. Nicholas.” Aloud, if possible. Or go the whole hog and read Dickens’s A Christmas Carol. Or watch it on TV. Eat, drink, and be merry!

Alternatively, go to DrDrew’s place and exercise and eat carrot sticks.

For a number of years, I have written the same goal for Christmas in my organizer every year: a peaceful, joyful, spirit-filled holiday with my family. But not everyone shares this vision. And here I am shamelessly promoting a joyful, spiritual Christmas experience, when there are other points of view that should be considered.

I refer, of course, to the Ayn Rand Institute and their effort to “get Christ out of Christmas.” Check this link: http://capmag.com/articlePrint.asp?ID=2254 for their thoughts on why Christmas should be a “a guiltlessly egoistic, pro-reason, this-worldly, commercial celebration.” This message has been delivered annually by these folks since 1995, and they may be making strides, since Christmas is for many Americans now an annual torture marked by intense stress and financial woes, guilt and/or ill health caused by over-indulgence, and time spent with family and associates whom they do not like but still have to buy things for. The Rand folks want you to give up silly notions of peace and good will, which “no one believes in anyway,” and enjoy Christmas as a sort of unabashed potlatch.

They point out, accurately, that winter holidays pre-date the birth of Christ. They also accurately point out the objections of the Puritans to Christmas, although they do not mention that the holiday festivities being objected to were not visiting the sick or singing in the parlor, but roistering about in drunken bands demanding money with menaces, a Colonial custom which we might not choose to see revived. Not to mention the custom of shooting off guns as noisemakers, and exploding anvils. Never mind; their argument, such as it is, is based not on fact but on emotion. You may find that it resonates with you.

Not me. Here is a nice modern song for you: “The Greatest Gift of All”:

http://www.angelfire.com/sd2/shadesz/TheGreatestGift.html

This is the cheesiest site I have ever linked, and I am just assuming that the recording it has of Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers singing this song is there legally. However, #2 daughter was playing this song at the piano last night, while we were all gathered around the fire, and it is a very pretty one. It also has a nice sentimental message about love, family, friends, prayer, peace, goodwill — you know, all that stuff. It was written in 1984 by John Jarvis, and has been recorded by several country artists, including the Parton/Rogers duet. I like Dolly Parton, myself, but this is also very nice with more of a jazz feel to it, as #2 daughter does it.

 So the links today will give you a choice of approaches to the holiday. Take your pick.

I am still not knitting, but #2 daughter made this stunning scarf. I am not a fan of novelty yarns, giant gauges, or variegated yarns, but I really like this one, which combines all those features. I hinted that she should give it to me for Christmas, but had no luck with that. However, she let me wear it today. What a good girl!

We copied it from one she admired at the mall, but I think it is very similar to the one Mayflower gave a pattern for early in the fall. It’s done in garter stitch, with every third row done with three yarn-overs to the stitch. In the next row, you drop all the yo’s, so you get a lacy effect.