Last year, Mr. TalkyPants kept secrets very well. We even told him Shmoogie's (real) name before she was born and he didn't say it to anyone until an hour after she was born and Aunt Doula asked him what his baby sister's name was. Boy, was she shocked to discover he'd known the secret all along!
This year, he actually understands the concept of a secret and promises solemnly that he will not tell, but as soon as he came home with Mr. Right and a secret present for me and one for Shmoogie and I asked, "What did you get for Shmoogie?" he blurted out, "A scarf!" Which I would know (even without the look of dismay on Mr. Right's face) was actually for me.
As you might guess, Mr. Right is big on presents being complete surprises. My family? Not so much. My mom asks me what I want, I send one or two ideas, and then - since isn't the cat already out of the bag? - she typically does away with even the figleaf of potential surprise by updating me daily, "Your graphics pad hasn't gotten here quite yet, but they say it's been shipped," "It came! I'm going to wrap it tomorrow," "I'm getting out the wrapping paper right now, hopefully I'll get it in the mail by the end of the week," and etc. until actually there is HUGE suspense because SERIOUSLY, WILL IT GET HERE IN TIME??? (Probably not, but did you know that it used to be traditional to exchange gifts on Epiphany, rather than Christmas, to celebrate the arrival of the Three Kings in Bethlehem with gifts for Jesus? See, it's not procrastination, it's *education*.)
Point is, I try hard to keep Mr. Right's gifts secret, but it's not something I'm really very good at. My best idea this year was for warm mittens, which was first given away somewhat by my measuring and tracing his hand last week. And then trying the first one on about a hundred times in progress to check the fit. Not to mention, I was so keen on seeing how they'd work out that I totally gave up on not knitting in front of him. He'd been so good about keeping his eyes closed during fittings, though, I figured he'd just have to not look at me. For most of the day. I tried to help out by knitting with my back turned to him, but he didn't seem to like that.
Ok, so then I finally finished one mitten on Sunday and I was really really pleased with myself.

(back of hand)

(palm)
I tried it on him one more time and then pretty much bullied him into spoiling the surprise completely, forcing him to admire it while I explained every last detail.
See, they're flip-top, so you can, say, buckle children into their carseats without having to pull them off completely.

And I got better at the tubular cast-off, isn't it nice and smooth?

And the thumb has it's own little top so you can use your touch-screen phone.

And isn't the color manly? How about the seed stitch? And the ribbing on the thumb?
And check out that applied i-cord that forms the edge of the flip-top! Note that it ties into a snazzy manly knot over there at the side of the hand! Do you recognize which knot that is?

He did! The bowline! (pronounced like bowlin'). A knot he loves... a knot which gets stronger the more it's pulled on... hopefully the kind of knot which you (figuratively) tie on your wedding day. He's given at least one wedding toast to such effect and I have always wanted to work a bowline into a present for him somehow. It works quite well here because the bowline forms a loop, which serves as the pick up point for the flip-top all the way around. It was fun figuring out how to knit the i-cord just the right length and attached an unattached in just the right places to be able to tie the knot at the end.
Anyway, I'm really really proud of myself on this one (I'll be even prouder if I finish the second one by Christmas and it matches). I mean, how often do you find a handknit that's romantic AND manly? (Am I kidding myself? It is manly, right?)
I should have made the cuff a smidge longer. And the whole thing may be a tad large in circumference (that's my hand in the pictures, though, so don't judge from that), but it's an awesome prototype, if I can just continue to toot my own horn for another sentence or two (did I mention that the ladies at the yarn shop were *very* impressed with this mitten?)...
New Year's Resolution: Write this (and the coordinating women's pattern that is so far only an idea) up in actual multiple sizes like a real pattern - er, AS a real pattern - and offer it for sale before Christmas next year. I think a his and her's set of bowline mittens would make a lovely winter wedding gift. Right? Any knitting readers here? I'd be including detailed/illustrated directions for the tubular cast-on and -off, the applied i-cord, and the bowline knot, as well as the main flip-top and the (slightly different technique) thumb flip-top. I think it will be awesome.
OK, so enough about me and my knitting ego. The 'truth' part of this post is about the tree. And the Christmas card. My international mail recipients have already gotten the card, but I haven't heard from anyone at home, so I'm still trying not to spoil the surprise, but I think I need to post the very last panel, because the truth is...

...the picture isn't true. We always do the cartoon in the week after Thanksgiving, which is way before we get a tree. But the last panel is always some sort of Christmas decorating scene and this year I figured we'd probably do like last year, buy a tree a half-mile down the hill and let Mr. Right carry the thing all the way home and up the three flights of stairs. I might or might not (probably not) be carrying a wreath during the whole thing, but carrying a wreath looks festive, so.
Then, Mr. Right became completely committed to the idea of a HUGE tree, which became clear to me when he brought home the German-engineered and German-made "V8" Christmas tree stand, which proclaimed proudly to be suitable for even "the biggest" trees (there was plenty of fine print about that inside, but our tree is quite sturdily mounted, no worries). And then I scoped out the trees and got prices and remembered to ask at the last minute, is there delivery service?
O, ja! Zehn Euro! Ten Euro is so much less than I was expecting for delivering a 12 foot tree (which, yes, MarMar, cost significantly more than 10 Euro itself) up three flights of stairs that I assumed I'd misheard. Really, only 15 Euro? I asked ("fifteen" sounds a whole lot like "ten" in German). No, no! TEN Euro! Up to the third story!
You'd better believe we had it delivered (after some confusion about when we wanted it - we were expecting to give a time for that day, but they were expecting us to give a *date* and then have to argue with us because obviously we would want it delivered Christmas Eve - the cherub Jesus-child is supposed to deliver a glorious surprise decorated tree on Christmas Eve exactly, so the Austrians are apparently upset to have to hide a 12 foot tree for a day...). We should have tipped the delivery guy, but we'd given every last scrap of our cash for the tree itself. We'll get back there with a tip eventually, I think. (For the record, it was a two-man job getting it up all those stairs and Mr. Right was one of them.)
Anyway, sorry about the artistic license/inaccurate prognostication in the Christmas card. And would you buy that knitting pattern?