I had a great Christmas, and, from what I’ve been reading in blogland, so did many others. Our time on Christmas Eve with our family and friends was laid-back and fun. We had great food and lots of laughs and champagne punch. Christmas morning was spent opening gifts with the kids and I am a lucky knitter, indeed. Unlike some others who didn’t receive any knitted related gifts, I scored. Dale got me a spinning stool and a WooLee Winder plus 3 knitting/spinning books. And, while I didn’t get any yarn, I did get a gift certificate to kpixie from my dear friend, Wendy.

Christmas afternoon we went to my brother-in-law’s house for dinner. We had a delicious meal of roast pork and scalloped potatoes and other goodies. We played Catch Phrase and had a Yankee Swap. But, the highlight of the day for me was this:

Yup, Jen and Barry had gifted her niece with a learn to knit kit and I got the privilege of teaching 10-year-old Emily how to knit. It was such fun! She took to it very quickly and spent the rest of the day carrying the knitting around with her and telling everyone how much fun knitting is! Woo and also hoo.

Another knitter is born. Now that’s a Christmas gift!

Edited to add: Emily is actually 7, not 10. An even younger knitter than I thought!

Let it be Christmas everywhere
Let heavenly music fill the air
Let every heart sing
Let every bell ring
The story of hope and joy and peace

And let it be Christmas everywhere
Let heavenly music fill the air
Let anger and fear and hate disappear
Let there be love that lasts through the year
And let it be Christmas, Christmas everywhere

Indulge me, please, for those words are from the chorus of my favorite Christmas song. It’s Alan Jackson’s, Let It Be Christmas, and it’s quite special to Dale and I for a lot of reasons.
I wish you all a holiday full of happiness and blessings in whatever form you want them to appear.

And now, let it be Christmas.

It’s all cooking, all the time over here at Carole Knits. This week we’ve made Ginger Cookies, Peanut Butter Balls, Fudge, Cranberry Pistachio Bark, Spritz, and Polish Teacakes aka Thumbprint Cookies.

Here we have the Ginger Cookies. Yummm.

And here we have Dale and Hannah rolling 6 pounds worth of Swedish Meatballs. Even more yummmmm.

Tomorrow night, Christmas Eve, will find us gathered with family and friends at our house. We will have some traditional Swedish foods, like the meatballs and sill and wasa crackers, plus other Christmas-type goodies. It’s low key and relaxing and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Those are my favorite cookies in the whole world. They’re called Polish Tea Cakes (although my friend, Chrissie, who’s more Polish than anyone I know, says no one in her family has ever made them) and they are simply the best. My mother got the recipe from a dear friend about 30 years ago and she made them every Christmas. Now I make them every Christmas and I’m sharing the recipe with my blog readers.

Polish Tea Cakes
1 cup butter
1 cup sugar
2 egg yolks
2 egg whites
2 cup flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla
finely chopped pecans
raspberry preserves

Cream butter and sugar until light. Add egg yolks and mix well. Add flour, salt and vanilla. Mix and roll dough in small balls, dip in unbeaten egg white and roll in finely choppped nuts. Place on butter baking sheet and press down center of each ball with a thimble.
Bake at 325 for 10 minutes. Remove from oven and press down center again with thimble. Return to oven for about 5 more minutes. Remove from oven and fill indentation with preserves while still warm.

In case you think there’s nothing going on but cookie baking over here, let me show you my latest productions from the spinning wheel.

First we have merino in a teal blue. There’s about 270 yards there.

Next we have blue faced leicester in shades of green and brown. There’s about 310 yards there.

Both are somewhere between DK weight and worsted weight. Any ideas on what I should knit with this stuff?