Crafty Coyote: The Christmas Edition

In an earlier entry I mentioned Christmas gifts--how I was making them, every one, this year, and how it would be dirt cheap. I mean, heartfelt and crafty, not cheap. Did someone say cheap?

Anyway, now that the holiday has come and gone, I can unveil to you my grand scheme for thrifty Christmas success. Here is a complete gift:

That's what they looked like, packed up and ready to go. The contents of one gift may or may not include one or more or none of the following:

A stack of hand-drawn greeting cards (blank white cards purchased in bulk--years and years ago--and decorated with calligraphy, felt pen illustrations and/or metallic gel pen highlights), attractively wrapped with hemp cord left over from the hemp craze circa 2001.

Origami ornaments. Remember the origami boxes I mentioned several times over the last month (usually in conjunction with Arrested Developement)? They're super easy to make, and I bet you could come by directions online. I made boxes mostly, though a few stars and snowflakes worked their way in there, and then threaded gold-braided ribbon through 'em and tied a little loop on one end so the whole thing could hang, attractively, from a bough.

Chocolate chip cookies! We can thank Ashley for the most amazing choc. chip recipe ever. These bad boys have uber-dark chocolate, milk chocolate, espresso dark chocolate and sugar-free Belgian chocolate in them instead of plain old Tollhouse (not that there's anything wrong with Tollhouse). I wrapped them in brown wax paper, tied them hemp and a calligraphied tag, and dropped them in the bag.

As for the wrapping, it's exactly what it looks like: brown paper lunch bags, with hemp cord and a gift tag. The gift tags were either hand-stamped or (an idea I blatantly stole from Erin--because it's absolutely brilliant--and therefore take no credit for but will definately use again) cut from leftover Christmas cards. The one shown was one of this year's cards that was sent to my work by another office. It's a gorgeous card, and now it lives on in an attractive gift tag.

Voila!

If you have questions or ideas, I'd love to hear them--especially the ideas. I had a blast making the gifts, and the best part was definately putting each one together for my loved ones. You know, designing cards specifically with my mom in mind, or trying to pick out the ornament that most reminds me of my brother, and so on.

I'm curious to hear what everyone else came up with for fun and thrifty gifts.

So long, 2006!

(I'm publishing this early because I'll be in Arizona for New Year's, so here it is. Also, here is last year's post. Looking back, I realize that Arrested Developement made both lists--not that I'm obsessive, really.)

This year I'm thankful for (in no particular order):

Oikos! And the delightful experience of (at last) being a member of a church body

four years of marvellous marriage (to the most magnificent Mitch)

creme brulee from the Mount Bakery (served at the Temple Bar)

Carina Round, The Disconnection

my family, who is made up of very neat people that I love more and more all the time

Arrested Development

Monday nights at Boundary Bay, dancing to the Gallus Brothers

contacts! (Goodbye, glasses)

the blessing of playing shows, and writing songs, and hanging out with people who play good music

shopping at Goodwill

my little bro, who periodically calls in the middle of the night to tell me that he loves me

the motivation to actually read the Bible, and to really study and learn tons

double tall americanos (black) from Caffe Adagio

Jonathan Foer at Village Books, and the brilliant things he said about writing and art

our cats, who make me laugh but who are excellent at snuggling

Greg Brown at the Nightlight, and that awesome rendition of "Evening Call"

four hour evenings at the Temple Bar with Morgan

origami boxes, origami paper

baking, and those amazing macaroons that Ashley made with bitter caramel buttercream filling

riverboating in Missouri (turtles! turkey vultures!)

The Black Keys, Rubber Factory

learning "Hallelujah" on the guitar

and yes, my new Kitchenaid mixer. It's amazing.

Order of Festivities

This year is busy as always, but somehow I feel like Mitch and I are finally getting the hang of this "four Christmases in three days" schedule. Our craziest year by far featured no less than five dinners within 24 hours (two Christmas Eve, three Christmas Day), none of which were our own, at our own house. Last year marked the first time we had our own stockings, and this year marks our first official Christmas breakfast--complete with guest. Our weekend looks like this:

Friday night. My dad's birthday dinner. We put 55 candles on an 8" layer cake and then lit them all. We call it the "birthday inferno," because it's just that dramatic--the cake radiated heat and everything, and when Dad blew them out he splattered wax all over the table. It was rad.

Last night. Carolling/dinner/candlelit liturgy at church. This was great fun, not least because there was a complete overdose on Christmas carols and an honest-to-goodness hayride through the York neighborhood. The church looked gorgeous, the food was delicious, the kids were adorable (and hysterically funny) as they sang "Silent Night" and "Away in the Manger"--also, I got to sing soprano in a quartet ("O Magnum Mysterium"). The whole evening was a whole lot of fun.

Tonight (Christmas Eve). Christmas at my dad's, with my aunt, uncle and two cousins. Food! Family! Presents! No birthday candles, though.

Tomorrow morning. Breakfast and stockings at our house. Eggs, grits and coffee are on the menu, and our friend Manis will be joining us for the morning. I mentioned that the cats have stockings this year, and I have it on good authority that Santa's bringing them Fancy Feast, bizzy balls and some crazy toy that looks like a huge fluorescent fur ball with arms. That should be entertaining.

Tomorrow midday. Mitch's family celebration. More family! food! and presents! This one seems to get bigger and bigger every year. The niece and nephew are back in town, so that'll be fun--I always seem to end up playing cars and hanging out with the little ones rather than sitting around having sophisticated adult conversation.

Tomorrow evening. Dinner at my mom's. This one marks the offical closing of the Christmas season with the last round of food, family and presents (and probably a Christmas nap, at some point)--it will be lovely.

So, that's the madness of our Christmas weekend. Mercifully, all our family lives close by so we don't have to brave the roads (though I did brave the express lane at Haggen's this morning, and that was equally scary), and I'm excited to see everyone.

May you all have a wonderful holiday! Merry Christmas.

Probably more than you wanted to know, but now I've told you

As you may have heard, I've been busy combining my book site with this one, which means I've had to manually go through and copy and paste every damn entry from one blog to the other. This has been a tedious process, but an enlightening one, as it's provided me with an opportunity to go back and read some of my earlier entries from both blogs.

Why enlightening? Well, it's interesting to have such evidence of the changes one undergos over the course of a year. Some of the sassy rants that I've posted over the course of my blogging career I find entertaining (yes, I'm the sort to laugh at my own jokes, it's true), but a lot of them express views that I no longer hold, or views that, alas, I never really held in the first place, as some were written with a specific audience in mind that might approve of or be irritated by whatever point I attempted to make. What I'm saying is: I noticed a trend in my writing of trying to impress whomever I imagined to be reading the entries. You, dear reader. I was trying to impress you.

Not the least significant of these earlier entries was the one I posted last winter about my attitude toward Christmas (The Birth of Santa). This was an entry that I was ambivalent about posting in the first place, since I didn't actually feel that I'd made my point, and didn't feel that I could without giving more personal info than I intended, or even wanted, to give--and so I left it as it was.

It's true that last year was a particularly stressful holiday for me, and I notice already that this year is somehow not. Being involved in a church has made a big difference, as we will be celebrating Advent for the first time ever, but I find I'm also getting excited about the holiday in a way I never have before. I ascribe a fair share of this enthusiasm to the fact that I will not be Christmas shopping this year. At all.

I mentioned earlier that I'll be making all my gifts, and I think this is helping to turn the season into a more meditative one--making gifts for nearly thirty people is peaceful and repetitive, particularly because I haven't put it off until the last moment.

Also, I'm excited to spend time with my family, to sing Christmas carols in church, to decorate trees, bake cookies and to not set foot inside a departement store even once. Already, I'm thinking this year will be a good year.

Apparently "snoggy" is not a real word

In my family, if you go into a store full of breakable things, it's a "kabosh" store. If a parent says "kabosh," you put your hands in your pockets--it means "look, don't touch."

In my family, when we go out for frozen yogurt, we say we're going out for "frozen whopper."

If your nose is stuffed up from a cold and you're breathing like Darth Vader, we say that you're "snoggy." I only recently realized that snoggy isn't a word outside my familial lexicon when I dropped it in conversation with my boss--I mentioned that I was feeling much better, thank you, though still a bit snoggy, and she wrinkled her nose and asked, "Still a bit what?"

In my family, when we say grace before a meal, we call it "dee-doos"--even in public places. When Mom and I go out to lunch, she grabs my hands, says "Let's say dee-doos," and launches into our family grace: "Thank you for our food and for each other, Amen." Like that, in one breath. Anyone who's eaten with our family more than three times knows about this and has our "dee-doos" committed to memory.

For a long time I did not think this odd, our deedoos, and then somewhere around high school I did, and I protested, because I wasn't into all that God stuff, and then I was into the God stuff but I still protested because I wasn't sure how sincere a prayer "Thank you for our food and for each other, Amen" could really be when you rattled it off every evening without thinking. At some point, though, I realized that it's a great prayer, concise, to the point, even if we don't open with "Heavenly Father" or "Dear Lord," because we know (and He knows) to whom we are speaking.

We have said this for as long as I can remember, and like "snoggy," "kabosh" and the word "dee-doos," I have no idea where it came from, but the more I say it the more I love saying it--the chorus of our voices, the squeeze of hands at the end, the reminder that, yes, the meal is lovely, but so is the company. So:

Thank you for our food, and for each other. Amen.