On Christmas Knitting

On a jarring note, I'm a knitter. And for the past three years, around Christmas I've suddenly found myself backed up with projects for other people.

On my list for the next week or so: a felted bowl/basket for my mother, a dog sweater for my aunt's favorite blind incontinent terrier, and some woolly slippers for my dad, who's looking more and more like an old wizard/librarian every time I come home. As these things get done, there may or may not be pictures.

Knitting things that people will actually want and use is hard in my family. My father and brother already have more hats than they can handle and my mother doesn't wear hats. Ever. I think her ears are made of cast iron. My aunt can always be counted on to parade around in whatever I make, but she's got quite a bit of my stuff already. The trick, it seems, is to constantly branch out so that they never end up with a backlog of unwearable socks.

My father is unbearably depressed by Christmas gifts, but I think he finally came around a little today. At the yarn store we saw a beautiful basket, and figured that my mother, who loves beautiful baskets, couldn't possibly turn up her nose. If we fill it with delicious things to eat, cute whatnots, and some home-grown knitting, how could she refuse it?

This is quite enough of this chipper holiday stuff, though. I'll conclude by saying that my lovely man Tim is coming up to visit, and I'm trying to figure out if it's at all possible for us to have sex in a museum. Imaginary readers: any suggestions for where on the Mall to get it on in relative safety?