SubscribeI was reviewing my Christmas presents and am especially pleased with the gifts for my beautiful brace of goddaughters: these for Evie
and these for Cecily.
(They are 3 and 1 respectively, and not very interested in reading blogs, so I think I’m quite safe in publishing these pics. There are other book-and-knitted-thing combos that I can’t risk putting up here…)
As I was looking at them, a memory stirred. I spent much of my teens babysitting Elinor, Adam and Iain, and one year for Christmas I knitted them each a toy and bought a book to go with it. If memory serves, Elinor got Red Riding Hood and her story, Adam a soldier and a book about a tin soldier, and Iain a pig and the story of the three little pigs, but I may have got those wrong.
I think it’s funny that, no matter what else has changed about me in the intervening 25 years, I still have very firm views on what to give a child for Christmas: a knitted thing and a book. I suppose the knit is something I can knit my love into, and reading has brought me happiness throughout my life, so it makes sense for me to want to pass that love on.
What gifts do you love to give?
(The fox is from the Intrepid Fox Knit Kit by Bombella, with yarn by Skein Queen.)
The gifts I love to give are the ones that I know are just right. When you see something to buy or make that you know the receipient will love.
Oh, yes! Iain had the soldier, and Adam had a pirate and The Man Whose Mother Was a Pirate. I believe Red Riding Hood and the Tin Soldier are till around somewhere, though I don’t recall seeing the pirate for many years. We were all astonished and delighted at the work and thought, not to mention the love, that went into those presents, and of course when they had the stories they had to have the toys to hold too. Adam says to tell you, you were his favourite babysitter!
Oh, yes, the pirate, that’s right! I loved babysitting your children. This time of year, Elinor singing ‘O come all ye faithful, joyful and trifle-umphant’.