All I Want for Christmas......

I'm gonna skip over all the general things we all want, like world peace and causeless joy and unbridled happiness, and get right down to the gritty nitty. Because, let's face it, there is some special present that we all want, some 'thing' that we long for, some item that we want to see under the Christmas tree each year. It's different for everyone, which is good, because we are all different and it stands to reason that we won't all desire the same things. Last year, for me, it was a Keurig. Of course, I was far from the only person who desired it. Several of my friends desired - and recieved - them. And I did recieve mine, in time, from a most unlikely source (thanks again, Jan Smoak and family!!!) so I've learned to believe in the power of stating what one truly wants, in the moment you actually want it, to the universe...or at least the readers of your blog.

I want a swifter for yarn.

And I'm gonna be nice enough, right here, to post the instructions for making it. Because I want it to be handmade. There is no gift, to me, as precious as one made by hand. And I know it's not likely I'll get a handmade gift this year. I may get something expensive, I may get something that would make any woman's eyes light up with glee, but if you know me, really know me at all...you'll know how I might feel about something like that, deep down inside.

A gift that would make my eyes light up with glee would be this....right here. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNSEXRRxOzQ

And not only  because I need it, desperately, as these new, unwound additions to my stash prove. I can't knit anything until these skeins are wound, and I can't keep calling my friend to loan me her swifter, and the hard plastic models the shops sale are ridiculously expensive and somehow un-natural. My friend's was made for her by hand. There is a natural sense to it, a thought behind how the pieces were fit together, how they curve and move in unison to make sense of tangled messes. With a swifter, I can blend two skiens, create different weights, and salvage messy, twisted, loose fibers into something useful, something that will eventually be beautiful and functional.

I want this. I want to sit at my table in the evening with a hot cup of coffee and engage in the repetitive, meditative work of winding yarn. To do this with a friend, while we talk and while the children play. I want this the same way I want to look out of my kitchen window and see a scene like the one in the first picture posted - sheep grazing on a field that is my own. But that's in the far off, work-towards future. The swifter is in the now. And it's got to be handmade, it's got to be the one gift I get this year that is from someone's heart, that expresses I, too, am worth the time and labor it takes to make, rather than simply buy, something. And I want to think of it's creator every time I use it. I want to be reminded there is no gift like one made for by hand. I want to run my fingers down the edges of the plain, sanded wood (because I love it unfinished) and feel my heart healing. I want to know wrongs can be righted, that fences can be mended, that in the end, love can and does conquer all.

I want to hear, or read,  "I made this for you," just once, instead of being the one to say or write it all the time. (The wonderful handmade gifts my child makes me, of course, are always precious and treasured...and a tradition I hope he'll continue, even when the time comes that he could easily buy a gift instead.)

So that's my Christmas wish...right here, again in case you missed it the first time: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNSEXRRxOzQ

I hope my Christmas wish, and yours, comes true!!!

(and forgive any typos in this post. I'm writing from a non-typical location while being reminded every two seconds by an eager 8 year old that I'm supposed to be somewhere else....)