The five objects I would save if the house was on fire...

But first, here are some pictures from Thanksgiving...
These are the turkey cupcakes I made for Brigham's class "feast"


Brigham's preschool class all dressed up as pilgrims and Indians. They even had pilgrim and Indian names- Briggie was Squanto!



My twin cousins Thomas and Charles, who remind me of Fred and George from Harry Potter- one of them dressed up in an inflatable Santa suit after Thanksgiving dinner. The boys were a little confused as to why Santa supposedly lives at the North Pole and yet has a pronounced southern accent...


Eric and Brigham changing the oil pan gasket in our car...



This was a giant gingerbread house that they had at Wild Dunes for all the kids decorate. They each got a little tray with icing and some candy to stick on. Great idea!



And here we are, earlier tonight, decorating our Christmas tree, which we cut down all by ourselves, using a combination of sawing and chopping (little Eric just really, really wanted to use an ax). Interestingly, the two states in which Eric and I were born are the number one and two producers of Christmas trees in the U.S.- Oregon (#1) and North Carolina (#2).


And that brings me to the inspiration for this post. The five objects I would save if the house caught on fire. Our Christmas stockings. There are very few domestic pursuits in which the women of my family distinguish themselves. In fact, there is exactly one: knitting. My Mom, grandmom, aunt and cousin can knit absolutely anything, and they have. But the pinnacle of knitting achievement in our family is the Christmas stocking. You're not a real member of the family until you have one. Before my Mom and Jeff got married, we used to say of her various boyfriends, "What do you think? Does he have stocking potential?".

If you're really exceptional, you even have two stockings, like me:). Actually that's because my grandmother knitted me one when I was born (which is the fifth object, not pictured), but my mom accused her of using inferior wool, which is a grave insult, and knitted me another one. And thus was born, the Bird Santa (pictured below). It's a Santa, in the shape of a bird, as you can see. My mom can do two styles of Santa, the Bird Santa and the "traditional" Santa. We all have Bird Santas- they're the coolest. My brother and Brigham both have camels on their stockings- those are pretty cool too.

So thank you, Mama, for the gift of always knowing that of all the people in the world, I have the best Christmas stocking there is, complete with the original Bird Santa and a cashmere panda! I'm sure I'll never live up to your incredible knitting prowess, but I know I've got to try, in case you ever start trying to use substandard wool ;).