Little Santa Project

I'm not quite sure what the status of Santa is around our house. Over the last few years, E and Z had been making a lot of, "If Santa's real, then how come…" type of noise. My boilerplate response: "Only people who believe in Santa get presents from Santa." Maybe they took this to heart, "how come…" discussion this year, even when I say things like, "It's not too late for Santa to make all your presents back." Or, "Did Santa treat you well this year?" I'm not sure if I'm humoring them or they're humoring me.

Anyway, E brought home a stack of good old dot-matrix printer paper from school on the last day before vacation and this inspired him artistically in a way nothing else has in a long while. He quickly turned out a super-cute Santa drawing that I knew right away I wanted to turn into an embroidery.



I had a bit of unexpected downtime Christmas Eve day (the wonder of being home all day on the 23rd to clean, so that the 24th only entails cooking and setting the table) and again Christmas day (after the guests left) and I stitched up the Santa. E started him off, sewing up the right side of his pants and overalls. I thought it would be cool if he did the whole thing, but one length of floss was enough for him (but he did pull of a serviceable backstitch, which could come in handy some day). After I finished, I framed him up in red fabric and hung him between the front windows by the tree, where he keeps busy making me smile.

For more on how to turn kid art into heirloom embroideries, see this post.