New Christmas List

Bhutanese Flag

A couple years ago Mr. Hunting Creek was buying a used computer game from a small store near our home when the young woman helping him with his list suddenly looked up from the list and asked, "Are you J.Hunting Creeks father? Is this J's list? " and of course he is, and it was. J. Hunting Creeks lists are so recognizably him that anyone who knows him , knows him from his list.
His lists from the past have included such items as bars of gold, throwing knives, silk smoking jackets and taxidermy animals, so anyone seeing those items once would never forget them..It is Christmas List as art form. J. considers making a list consisting of pajamas and gift cards to be rookie material. Your list should both reveal who you are and also what you aspire to be. Let that be an inspiration for us all.

Here is the list from this year:

J’s Christmas List 2012

A gun belt

Something from space

A neon sign

A copy of the New York Times from the day I was born, or the Economist from that week. The Washington Post is not an acceptable substitute.

Disguises (pilot’s uniform w/ fake mustache, doctor’s uniform, Dalai Lama/Pope/Prophet Muhammad outfit, etc.)

A prop from a moderately well-known movie (with certificate of authenticity of course)

Something signed by a world leader (G20 members only. Come on, guys)

A functional pocket watch, top hat, and monocle

A full-size flag of either Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Kiribati, Kyrgyzstan, Papua New Guinea, Brunei, Seychelles, Swaziland, or Montenegro (list is in order of preference)

Miracle fruit tablets http://www.amazon.com/Miracle-Fruit-World-350mg-Frooties/dp/B004SOMH3M/ref=sr_1_1?s=grocery&ie=UTF8&qid=1330411083&sr=1-1

Something really tall

A smaller version of a toaster oven, if that exists? Approx. the size of a lunch box

Smaller versions of things in general (not miniature toy versions but actual functional versions of things like those tiny trampolines)

A taser (will be used only on myself, willing participants, or unwilling assailants, purchase only if potentially having my death on your hands is worth the risk)

A breathalyzer

Like, a lot of ankle socks. A lot (for real you guys my dad keeps stealing mine).

Something that would have been worth a lot of money a long time ago, but today is not (has to have been an existing product at the time when it would have been valuable, by which I mean no recent inventions that would have been valuable just because they weren’t invented yet)

Piece of the Berlin Wall – without graffiti, please

Piece of the Great Wall of China – graffiti acceptable if in Chinese

All gifts from previous years are still acceptable, and if you can mix them together that would be sweet (e.g. gold-plated taxidermy animals)

All gifts can be replaced with their approximate value in cash (so that I can maximize utility), as long as the cash is wrapped like a present and accompanied by a note saying what the cash is replacing (in case I want to buy it myself).

Now that you have read the list of a Master, what list would you write? Will your new list include what you want in your secret heart? Sewing lessons from Ralph Rucci? Dancing lessons from a Broadway choreographer? Cooking lessons with Eric Ripert? A trip to Chiang Mai?

Only by learning what we truly desire and then expressing those desires, can we take the necessary steps toward realizing those dreams. The dreams might start with a silk top hat and a monocle, but who knows where they will lead.

Take another look at your Christmas List and see if it needs a rewrite. I know mine does.

All I Want For Christmas, Italian Edition

My daughter flew to London yesterday to spend the holidays with her Italian boyfriend and his family. While we will miss her terribly and will celebrate Christmas again when she returns, there are compensations (besides Christmas gifts from Italy). She will bring me Italian Sewing Magazines.
European sewistas don't use the printed paper pattern as much as we do here in North America. Instead they have magazines with patterns in them like Burda World of Fashion, Patrones, La Mia Boutique, Modellina and several others. When she was in Italy last spring she brought back an issue of La Mia Boutique,which to my surprise, also contained recipes. Bella Figura obsessed Italians can whip up cool tees with the shoulders cut out and then step in to La Cucina and whip up Bucatini con Le Sarde. I loved slipping into the fantasy that I lived that kind of life. I don't get that from my American magazines; they are much more prosaic. U.S. magazines are Balkanized into Sewing , Cooking, Gardening, etc, and they rarely mix topics.
The European magazines are also culturally revealing. Their visual language is different; you wouldn't mistake an Italian fashion shoot for an American one. And the language! They are breathless in a way that only a fashion magazine can be - that tone of awe about New Spring Looks that transcends cultures. No matter where they are from, the fashion people all seem to drink the same delusionary kool aid when it comes to discussing the importance of new sleeve silhouettes. It just sounds better in Italian.
I'm lucky, my daughter is fluent in Italian, and can translate for me (while I speak Italian at the first grade level, I can read Italian and Spanish with a little help from il dictionario). While I tell Mr Hunting Creek that the magazines are Educational, I can't say that knowing the Italian for gathering, basting and sewing invisible zippers is helpful beyond sewing. As we learned on our last trip to Italy, being able to speak sewing and cooking Italian is only marginally helpful when trying to understand the announcements over the loudspeakers in Termini.
But no matter! When she arrives with my magazines, I can pretend for a while that I am sewing in Italian and that makes even a tshirt pattern just that much more romantic.
Happy Sewing!