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Tag: getting in the spirit

The Christmas Stocking Story

Giving of arts and crafts has been interwoven tradition in my family for years. In lean years, we made gifts for people. I still have several of the treasures that my talented mother made. I have some also that I made for family members not with us any longer. I have been making Christmas stockings for people in my family since my first born. My great grandmother made my first Christmas stocking that I still have and display each year. My grandmother made a giant Christmas stocking that has inspired me always in my work on Christmas stockings.

I love all of the handmade crafts made by my family – these are true treasures. Even more, I love the memory of being taught how to do something by family and friends. My mom taught me how to do needlework (crewel embroidery), that I learned in Girl Scouts, but didn’t refine until my mom showed me some key points of understanding about the skill – today we’d call them “hacks”. Back in the day, we did not have social media and widespread how-to’s available to us except in books and magazines or if we were lucky, with a mom or grandmother who could show us what to do real-time.

Very much I wanted to carry on the spirit of tradition and love of making by hand the Christmas stockings. In this, I made a Christmas stocking for my grandchild just in time for his first Christmas in 2015. It was a work of love and hard work this is. Needle work is always hard and it takes love to drive it and have it look right – creativity is a must. Here is a little video of my tour of the stocking (pardon my amateurish camera work!). Hoping that this lasts so that my grandson can see this one day, and appreciate it.

Everyone loves to look at the work and ask about the history. Some of these are deeply handmade, some are just choices of really cute little items that we’ve found that we wanted to include in the work.

Love

Of – My Grandson and Carrying on Tradition by Making…

Visual Memories From the Generations

Especially for My Grandson – A Christmas Stocking Story by Geema

December 8, 2019
So. Other than the TV ads, its not so “in your face commercialism Christmas” here…

the fact of the matter is – the commercialization seems to be a real “American thing” – so, closer proximity – yep, Canadians do it “big” too – and as I was there through the season – the creeping in of the holidays began before Thanksgiving, shortly after Halloween… bit by bit.

Don’t get me wrong – there is still some of that here. But more, there is some dignity and subtleness that somehow Americans have left behind – exception being television commercials… those are still very shouty and loud – you know that style of urgent and the “buy it now or else” kind of advertising… hurry hurry hurry… spend it now and buy this junk here, right here, right now! Mind if I don’t?

But my wearing a shirt with a jolly Christmas message on it was quite a novelty. As I have been told, you can’t find that sort of thing here… probably true. So, the test – Christmas is a day that we celebrate the birth of Christ – ok – let’s see how this plays out… I think that it will likely be peaceful and that we will not see the insanity of midnight Christmas Eve desperation thrown at the parking lots around here…

More likely what it should be…

December 22, 2014
Maybe it is just a process… You know, like life is just a process? Reflection pools…

Yeah, of course… it’s the memories…

This was the second Christmas… Good to try to improve the first one…

It seems like such a long time ago – and I was… This was representative of hope – I actually have an old VHS of this day – and it snowed, too… which was interesting, because it doesn’t snow that much where we live, in Texas…

Rob was just over a year old. I have some other pictures of him – walking and running around like a Wildman that he was – of course a total contrast from 1987, when just a month old he was recovering from surgery and just out of the neo-natal ICU… We weren’t sure of much at the time… not at all. Scary. But 1988 was a turnaround improvement. We thought he actually might stay awhile… And he did. Almost 18 years total – but we never knew. Every cold, every sniffle brought some potential for a tumble down.

We learned to go to battle each time, getting better as we learned, only to know how much we had yet to learn, each time. The vastness of the giant battle against an enemy that can take many forms. Christmas was always the hopeful time, no matter what. We made it that way.

Rob, as he grew up, always was feisty and sometimes people did not suspect anything – in fact, as he got older, he preferred that people not know… for him, it was better that way, day to day.

At 1988, Rob moved into “live it to the fullest” mode and never looked back…ever. This is why Christmas time did represent so much hope to us…

Looking out… Observing and exploring…

Now, I have to re-learn how to regard Christmas. The first year was unbelievably tough. With every year, it has morphed and the character of my grieving has changed. It still is preferred to just be low key, but I feel that I am more of an observer, just going through motions. No, it doesn’t help having friends there while I attempt to decorate the tree – nah. Not when it took me three martini’s per session the last time I did this, and it took me several “sessions” to “git ‘er done”… And then, there is the “dismantling”… oh my God in Heaven, please deliver me from having to go through THAT. I’d rather not.

So, what to do? Escape? Doesn’t really solve the problem, now, does it? I guess that I will continue to slog through it one year at a time, hoping for hope, hoping that each year I will change my feelings and lift myself up. One thing is for sure, nobody else can do this for me… I must do this myself.

Maybe this will be the year. Hope floats.

December 21, 2014