Silk Stockings

Don't be a pervert.  I'm talking about Christmas stockings made out of silk.

When I was packing up the Texas house, the Christmas stuff was far from my mind.  So I didn't bring anything except one antique ceramic tree (yes, that highly breakable thing made no logical sense as the one I would choose).  The critical point of all that is that WE HAD NO STOCKINGS. And we all know that Santa travels across the WHOLE globe, so no stockings was not an option.

This led to a vision: have "Middle Eastern" stockings made.  John and Pat drew a pattern, measured in centimeters, and we decided to go totally fancy and pick fabrics from Bombay Silk.

Bombay Silk is a beautiful place full of incredible Indian fabrics--from silks to saris to suiting.  The seven of us (which is like a horde of chaos) marched ourselves in there one evening about a week ago.  God Bless the sweet men that work there.  They are Indian with a range of rather varied English speaking skills.  They are Hindu.  They live in the Middle East.  They *have* heard of Santa, but I don't think they had ever heard of stockings.  Remember that even different European countries have different Santa traditions.  Some leave a shoe on the front porch. Some leave a bag where all gifts are left.

So we descended upon these kind gentlemen.  John started one conversation, and I started another (with two different men).  Here's a close rendition of how my conversation went (after the pleasantries of hellos and how are you doings):

Me: "We would like to have stockings made--you know for Santa?"

Kind Man: "Santa!  Yes!  Christmas.  Merry Christmas!"

Me: "Thank you!  So we need stockings so Santa can leave a gift."

Kind Man grabs a huge bolt of red velvet: "Santa! Yes?"

Me: "Well, we thought we would use some of your beautiful Indian fabrics instead."

Kind Man looks confused.

I get out the drawing.  "Here is a pattern, but we will each pick our own fabric."

KM looks confused: "How many pieces?"

Me: "One per person, so seven."

KM: "Not two?  But you have two feet?"

My turn to look confused.

KM: "These are socks for your feet, yes?"

Me: "Well, no not exactly.  They look like socks but bigger.  Santa puts a gift in them."

KM looks even more confused.  Just looks blankly at me.

Me: "Yes, we leave these out--that is why they are larger than regular socks."

KM: "Like a boot?"

Me: "YES!  Like a boot shape!"

KM: "But don't you want one boot for each foot? Two feet, two boots, yes?"

Well, this went on for a while, but we knew that the cross-cultural communication succeeded when the tailor (the man John was talking to) asked, "Do you also want a loop so you can hang it?"  I almost kissed the man when he said that because I knew he got it.

So we each picked a meter of fabric and a half meter of trim (except Hank, who didn't want trim), left the pattern, and thanked the men (who were laughing and shaking their heads at the craziness of it all).

Two days later, John got a message on his phone containing a picture.  They were checking to make sure that the first one looked "right" before making the other six.    On the 23rd, we made the trip back to Bombay Silk to pick them up.  Here are photos from that trip.