So as I write this, the Monday before Christmas, all my knitting deadlines are done. I now have this clear space in my brain where I can now to think about my own Christmas. If you have experienced the stress that comes with having a deadline, then you would understand the exhilarating feeling that comes with the end of one.
For those of you who did not make it to the finish line, I am sorry. I know the feeling of looking at the knitting at hand, and then anxiously looking at the clock at regular intervals, trying to calculate how many rows have been worked in those precious minutes, and just how many more there are to go.
You are constantly working the math, and hoping that somehow, you have actually underestimated how long it will really take to finish. Maybe you even miscalculated.
Not a chance — this seems to be the only time that I, as mathematically challenged as I am, will get it right. There comes the time, when you finally have to accept that it just isn’t going to happen. That even if you knit till all hours, and order take out food from now till Christmas Eve that you just can’t finish. The moment that you can allow yourself to think it, you take a breath, and stop knitting. It is at exactly this moment that for the first time in days, hours that you can breathe, deeply.
So, it is this final moment of realization of the inevitable, that you finally just relax. There is a joy in feeling the cool sense of relief as you feel it wash over your body, cleansing it, and your mind, making way for new thoughts, like now what shall I do? The answer is very simple and is practiced over and over every holiday season.
You find the cheeriest wrapping paper or gift bag, and at this point, you gleefully wrap up the knitting as it still lies on its needles, along with the pattern, a promise of what will eventually come, after the holidays; just not yet.
Now it begins to slowly dawn on you that you actually have some free time to enjoy some of what makes this holiday time so special. Visit some friends or family, bake some cookies, or just take a little time to participate in some holiday events.
Every year there is this home on Fern Avenue in Litchfield that has this lone little Christmas tree out in the middle of the woods, yet visible from the road, that I love to stop and look at, at night time.
This tiny little tree, illuminated in tiny white lights, brings such joy and peace to my soul. I must take the ride to visit this little tree and renew my Christmas spirit.
I hope that you will all find the time to find your little tree and take a moment.
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