It's all my Husband's Fault--Family Traditions

It’s all my husband’s fault—the knitting, I mean.  Worried his Great-Aunt Carol was getting on in years, Chuck predicted the family tradition of awarding all new family members matching hand knit Christmas stockings would die out, unless someone younger took up the craft of knitting.  His mother assured him she could figure it out.  But ignoring her, he turned to me and his brother’s wife Debbie and announced, “I nominate you two.”   Debbie stated she wasn’t remotely interested and helpfully pointed out that Chuck could learn to knit.  He was simply too busy, or so he said, so that left me.

Curiosity overwhelmed me.  Why was my husband being so sentimental?  Was this so important to cause him to open his emotional lockbox and let a feeling escape by verbalizing it?!  In front of his family, no less? He never fails to intrigue me by exposing never-before-suspected mysteries in his personality. 

Hope rose in my heart.  Was it possible I could become more to his family than Wife-of-Chuck or Mother-of-First-Born-Grandchild-Tommy or Liberal-Democrat-with-Disastrous-Financial-Mind? I mean, since bearing the first grandchild, I was pretty much only useful as a taxi for said child.  The thought of adding Knitter-of-Christmas-Stockings to my short list of roles intoxicated me.  Visions of knitting needles danced in my head.  I could uphold a family tradition.  I could belong! 

Eight years after that fateful conversation, I completed my first Christmas stocking by recreating the pattern on graph paper from the stocking I got as a wedding gift.