Merry Christmas

It's pushing noon on Christmas day, and this is how our house still looks (although these photos were taken earlier this week):

When you are a "second family" which shares your children with ex-spouses, Christmas doesn't begin until they arrive.  Since my son and my Honey's daughters both live with their other parents, we split Christmas day in two.  They wake up there to open presents, then get into cars and come down here (five hours) to finish with Christmas dinner and more presents.  My Honey meets his ex on the road halfway and is already en route.  My ex delivers my son to my dad, who loads up his car and comes all the way to spend part of the week with us.  So my Christmas present is a quiet peaceful house before a week of chaos, meals around the clock (so it feels) and voices of children trying to be heard above one another.

I had Thursday and Friday off from work, and we cleaned and prepared to host Christmas Eve dinner for my Honey's family of nine, so today is a true "free day."  I'll set up an air mattress in my sewing room for the overflow guests, precook a meal or two for later in the week, and otherwise I have the entire day to sew.

I began two projects this week in the time I left myself each evening to "reward" myself for busy days.  One was a comfort quilt for the guild with fabric they supplied.  They put in six inch squares to sew together for a quilt top, but of course I couldn't leave it at just that:

I had to make disappearing nine patch blocks out of them for a little more visual interest:

Maybe I will post some photos of the other project a bit later in the day.  It occurs to me that it's one of those things that happens when you give a gift and find that you've inadvertently received one in return.  More later ... but for now, I hope you are all enjoying your Christmas day (or Sunday, if you don't celebrate) in a way that brings you joy.