Make-Up Thursday Post

Thank you so much to Cindy, Angela, Julia, Summerset, Mary, Sarah, Katherine, Tasia, Lori, Gwen, Patsijean and Lois for talking back to my confession two weeks ago! I confessed that this year, for the first time in many years, I will not be making Christmas presents for my friends and co-workers. And I asked if others make many (any?) of their Christmas presents...


Overall, most people replied that yes, they (at least sometimes) make (at least some of) their Christmas presents. We only had one "no, never" vote across all of the commenters. However, many people did mention that making gifts does take a lot of time and can be stressful. Katherine, for example, perfectly described my experience, in that what seems like a good idea for the first one or two iterations of a gift, becomes much more tedious and "what was I thinking?" by the time you are working on the ninth or tenth one... ;)

And Lois used to make a lot more of her gifts until her DH pointed out how much time it was taking up and how stressed it was making her during the holiday season.

But, despite the definite challenges, most people still make at least some of their gifts. Sewing for family, called out 7 times, was definitely more common than sewing for co-workers and friends (only called out twice).

So, what do people sew for Christmas gifts? There were some clothes items mentioned - Cindy does Christmas pajamas for her whole family, Julia and Patsijean make clothes for their grandchildren, and Patsijean and Tasia are making clothes for the men in their lives this year. But I was surprised by the large variety of other gifts that people have made: items mentioned included lots of home decor items like throw pillows and pot holders, purses and assorted tote bags, Christmas stockings, cases for everything from pencils to eye glasses, covers for composition books, dolls, felt games - you name it, someone has made it! :)

Finally, there were a couple of gifts mentioned where the object itself was secondary to the nature of the gift - these are gifts of memories. Cindy makes a new 12-block lap blanket for her Mom each year, and each block has a recent picture of the grandchildren on it.

And Julia's plan for this year inspired my choice of a photo for this post. She is thinking about taking fabric scraps from all the outfits she has made for her grandchildren in the past and using them to make Christmas tree ornaments. The wall hanging in my photo was a gift to me from one of my sewing students - who took scraps from all the outfits we made together during our lessons and created a tree for me... Talk about a gift of happy memories! :)

Store-bought or hand-made - the important thing about our gifts is that they show how we feel about our friends and family. If we can find a way to combine that with our love of sewing, without getting too stressed out, that's great. But if not, that's fine too. It's amazing how often this holiday that is supposed to be about sharing joy can turn stressful. I hope everyone is able to enjoy their holiday this year! :)