I’m now in my 14th year of creating Grammy Jammies. The grandkids wait with eager expectation at Thanksgiving time, knowing I will bring out the fabric bags that contain the newest iteration of Christmas fleece and footies. ”What color do you think they will be?” they wondered this year, inventorying all the past colors and designs. I never give away my secrets.

It’s a joyful mayhem, untying the bags, pulling out the contents and rushing off to don the new soft Jammies and present us with a style show. Karen’s kids were at our house for the festivities. Ben and Mya have self-selected out of the footies by now, but still willingly sport matching jammy pants.

Unwilling to miss the fun at Carl’s house, I made a special trip to Milwaukee for the presentation. I barely got in the door before they clamored for the bags. There’s nothing like hugging wiggly laughing grandkids in fleece.

That brought the tally to 7.

Not one to shirk my duties, I continued on to outfit the furry friends as usual. Many of them are the same shape and size, and thankfully they do not grow or change from year to year! I can dash off at least two of those in a day.

Now I was up to 14.

But this year there was more. After at least a year of not so subtle hints from the parents, I took on the challenge to outfit them as well. Even though jammy pants are naturally loose and baggy, I found that fitting adults was trickier than the forgiving slipper jammies on the kids. Especially when compounded by a rather outdated pattern that assumed we still wore pants up to our natural waistline! So I took a graduated approach, making two pair at a time, altering them after try-on sessions, and learning as I went.

Karen and Matt were my first guinea pigs, and thankfully they took my outlandish productions with a great deal of humor and good sportsmanship.

For the record, I managed to tame their pants down to more reasonable proportions.

I arrived at Carl and Chelsea’s house equipped with sewing machine and measuring tools. Fortunately, my latest revisions served me well, and their jammy pants required just minor adjustments.

By the time I got to Erik and Katie, I had the process down to a system and quickly modified theirs to fit.

The good news is that I now have six individualized patterns that should suit everyone for future years!

So that brings the total to 20 pairs of jammies this year. A credible effort, and weeks of fun in the process. But wait, the title says 21! 

Ah yes. Stay tuned for the next blog post to reveal the finale. (And no, I’d never get Rich to wear jammy pants!)