A Flat Christmas

Recently I posted that little email meme with a question about "decorating theme" for Christmas. As I think more about it, the theme for this year has been "A Very Flat Christmas."

Our first guest of the season was Flat Stanley. He was quickly joined by Flat Abby.


My parents came for a combined Thanksgiving/early Christmas celebration and my mom agreed to transport any packages for the Florida family- so long as they were flat. And, she herself requested a flat present.


It's a good thing we celebrated early as I have since spent a lot of time flat on my back. Not entirely really. I am getting better every day and feel so much better than I had imagined. But, it sort of goes with the theme.

Here's what I came up with for my Florida family. Unfortunately, not one but two scheduled get togethers had to be canceled. Upon returning home from caring for me, my mom became very ill. She has a really bad ear infection. Since she is deaf in the other ear, this really scares her. She may even have to drive from Florida to New Jersey for my brother's wedding next week. Today she goes to the doctor and I just pray that her ear is healed so she can fly!

Akk! That's not fun! Anyway, back to my Flat Christmas post. Melinda, you can either look away or receive your gift "virtually" right now. By the time everyone gets together to exchange gifts it will be a surprise all over again.

So, for the men- restaurant gift certificates from Restaurant.com. I just picked restaurants close to their homes. I hope it works out well because this place has *great* deals.

The kids all got I Spy mini quilts that fold into pillows. Of the four, this is the only one I got photographed.

I swore up and down that this year I was going to use what was in my stash! Then I saw this super cute houses fabric at Joannes. My aunt is a real estate agent who hosts her big family and extended friends. Surely, she could use another apron. I used the pattern in Simple Gifts to Stitch but modified the neck to button rather than tie.

Be sure to click on the picture to see it larger. The house pattern reminds me a bit of A Black Apple House. So many artists have fabric lines. I keep waiting for some fabric label to pick up Emily's work, but for now this will have to do.

One of my cousins has four children under six. That's a lot of birthday entertaining. So I reasoned that a handy birthday bunting in gender neutral colors might be handy.

Colorful, festive and flat, but impossible to photograph in our apartment.

I wanted to do something different for my other cousin because twins get a lot of duplicate gifts.
At this point, my mom was already in LA and I also knew about my surgery. I was forced to think and sew quick and use just what I had on hand. I turned to flickr and wasn't disappointed.



These gifts were easily packed. Now, I hope my mom recovers in no time flat!