Holiday Traditions - and a Contest!

The newest SITM Twice contest has to do with holiday traditions...and I've been thinking a lot about holiday traditions lately.

I really struggle with this. Christmas was really important to my dad, I always just went along for the ride - and not willingly much of the time. My sister, did I ever name her? I don't even remember. Maybe I'll have a contest to name her? (Contest is at the bottom of this post.) Boy do I have stash for this project! Photo #1 is from 1975 (I'm the one in pink. My mom did the embroidery and made the dress, I was so stylish.) I think that my grandmother made the gay apparel that sis and bro don.

As you can see from the blurb on the right side of my blog (my bio), my blog's name comes from my uncertainty of the truth. Am I cynical? I don't really know...probably yes, in a lot of ways. But I really really really wanted to believe in Santa when I was 10, and my siblings really REALLY wanted me to stop believing...they aren't bad people, they just liked razzing me. You'd never know that I am the eldest of the three of us. On the left, the photo with the mall Santa, is my little sister. She's 36 now. I think she was 1 in this photo. She was always a smart kid, why the heck would a kid WANT to sit on a stranger's lap even if he IS in the likeness of St. Nick?!

One of the traditions that we had was that sister and I would take shifts waiting to see Santa's sleigh. We used to stay in the room at my Grandma's that was once Dad's room. There was a hideous err... uh... I mean retro avocado chenille sofa bed in that room that and I would share. and I took this job seriously and would take shifts at the window. One year, she told everyone that I snored and that she saw the red sleigh. And no one will ever know the truth of that evening...

There, the three of us. Sister (now 36) brother (now 34) and CKG, donning a patchwork jumper made by Mom.

Sister and brother now live in Northern and Southern California respectively. They are all grown up with kids of their own now, sister has two little girls, brother has a little girl on due in April.



Now for the contest:

Until December 31 (Monday), I will take suggestions for the names of my sister and my brother. Please email me if you have questions. Then, I will pick the top ones and post a poll in order to determine the "best" option. You can do this in comments to this blog, or to my email cynicalknittinggal at gmail dot com.

There will be three winners:

1. for the person who submits the most referrals to this contest (please use comments for this)
2. for the person who submits the winning blog-name of my sister
3. for the person who submits the winning blog-name of my brother (isn't he cute in the little outfit?!)

The prizes will be yarn from my stash (and maybe other goodies). Some of which is on Ravelry, some is not. So, tell all your friends (1 point per referral)!!!