I got it into my head to make some homemade holiday gifts this year. Not a complete DIY-Fest, but just a few “supplemental” gifts. I cannot say what they are just yet, since a few of my readers are on Santa’s list.
But let me just say this: there always seems to be a significant gap between the quality and classiness of the imagined gift…
…and the actual end product.
Parents, I would like to urge you to think good and hard about encouraging youngsters to make handmade gifts. Some of us never get it out of our heads that we can produce a treasured object, and even decades later we are foisting our hand-mades on friends, family, our favorite cashier at the grocery store, the UPS man…
It’s all harmless, I know. But it’s quite time consuming. The time-spent-to-quality-achieved-ratio is way out of whack. And worst of all, we never learn from the past. We go on crafting gifts year after year, leaving a trail of dreadful projects in our wake as we cling to our belief that the next one is really going to shine.
I think the real trouble is The Gift Balance phenomenon. Even if you are giving a gift that will not be reciprocated, there is a certain equality involved. “You were kind to me this year, so I made you this lovely cake.” It’s a nobler version of “we’re even.” A citizen’s take on the Naughty And Nice List.
The problem is that the things I make that are really worth having (i.e. hand-knits) take hours and hours to create. A pair of socks takes about 25-35 hours, for example. If I stuck to the sure winner, not only would it be impossible to get through my gift list, but my gifts would be overqualified for the job in most cases.
“Just buy something!” …I know. I assure you I’m not being cheap. My time is my most precious asset. Unfortunately the training of early childhood, which maintains that homemade gifts contain more love, is deeply ingrained in my holiday consciousness.
Friends, please accept (and forgive) my wonky gifts. Go ahead and throw them away when I’m not looking. But don’t discard the wrapping: my deepest regard and warm wishes for a happy holiday.