A Very Crafty Christmas

While we have chosen the Winter Solstice as the impetus for our family's "festival of light" celebration, our extended families celebrate Christmas. While this works out wonderfully in regards to figuring out the timing and balance of celebrating quietly at home and celebrating with our relatives in a larger way, it can turn into a bit of a celebration overload. Last year we had our whole disastrous Solstice extravaganza at home, and then 4 days later went to Lena's parents' house for a repeat performance on Christmas morning (with Lena's parents, sister, 2 brothers and our brother-in-law as captive members of the audience). This year, as with Solstice, we were determined to do Christmas differently. Lena and I proposed to the family that we approach Christmas with a "smallering" (a la The Lorax) frame of mind. After a couple of weeks of email discussion, we all decided that we would drastically scale back the gift-giving so that everyone would exchange small, handmade or otherwise "green" gifts through the stockings, as opposed to giving each other larger under-the-tree presents. In addition to making stocking gifts for Christmas morning, we wanted to make presents for some of the other special children in our lives. In the weeks leading up to Christmas, our house (or at least the dining room table) was transformed into Craft Central. Lena and I had so much fun making things for everybody.

Christmas morning at Lena's parents' house. Everyone lines up in age order: Zeb, Jaz, Luke, Melissa (Lena's brother Will's girlfriend), Will (Lena's brother), me, Lena, Addie (Lena's twin sister/Tucker's mom), baby Tucker, Max (Addie's husband), Ethan (Lena's brother), Donald (Lena's dad) (Lena's mom, Merka, was taking the picture)

The task of making things that kids would really enjoy was the most daunting. While I've always wanted to be a wooden toy maker (and have plenty of ideas about what kinds of toys I would make), I feel limited in my lack of woodworking tools or skills. So I searched through many pages of Etsy shops to find inspiration for handmade children's toys. When I entered the keywords: "knight toy," I found just what I was looking for in a shop called "Goose Grease." Lukas and Jasper have always loved playing with plain wooden peg figures (much to my bewilderment since I always preferred more realistic toys as a kid. I was shocked when, at age 4, they dismissed the detailed Kathe Kruse dollhouse dolls we got them (to match our own family) in favor of a set of rainbow colored wooden pegs). So the idea of painting wooden pegs into characters struck me as brilliant. I "caught the idea" (a nice way to say "copied") for what to make for Lukas (with wooden pegs from this online craft supply store) directly from goosegrease's shop.

Four Ninjas and a Teeny Tiny Super Guy

Painting the wooden pegs was so much fun that I decided to make painted figures for all of the small children in our life. Our potluck group (we have weekly potlucks with a group of friends) picked names out of a bowl for a secret gift exchange, and we picked the family that includes Zeb's good friend Elijah (who is nearly two). Elijah is an Elmo fan, so I decided to make him a set of Sesame Street characters.

Big Bird, Snuffy, Elmo, Oscar, Cookie Monster and Grover

Next I made some wooden peg creations for our niece, Araela. I wanted to make her some characters from a book, and my mom suggested the characters in Kevin Henkes' Mouse books. I decided to focus on the mouse "Lilly," specifically, and painted Lilly, her Mama and Papa, and her baby brother, Julius (consulting the book, Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse for outfit ideas). Lilly's family is a perfect match for Araela's family (who welcomed baby Ezra two months ago).

Papa, Mama, Lilly and Julius

The Mouse Family from behind

Once the mouse family was finished, Luke and Jaz insisted that I also make Lilly's best friends: Chester, Wilson and Victor.

Chester, Wilson and Victor

And once I had made Lilly's friends, it seemed the set would not be complete without Lilly's favorite teacher (a key figure in the books), Mr. Slinger. I packaged all 8 mice up in a box, and sent them off to Oregon.


Jasper watched intently while I painted the mice, and requested many times that I paint for him a "family of Yodas" (Yoda from Star Wars--the movies that the kids are most obsessed with despite never having seen them). Despite much doubt about my ability to be successful, I decided to attempt it. I gave up after about 5 minutes (I've never seen the movies either and struggled with how to make a round peg into a Yoda-shaped head), but Lena rallied and truly did a most excellent job.

Yoda, Yaddel, "Yippie," "Yah," and baby, "Yo"
(Yoda and Yaddel are real Star Wars characters,
Jaz came up with the names for the other 3)

Side View: note the fabulous ears

When it came time to make some "guys" for Zeben, I decided to keep it simple. These days he's really into colors (his favorites are pink, yellow and orange), and drawing "happy guys," (or rather, insisting that we draw them for him: happy faces, sad faces, surprised faces, etc.). I think he is learning about "feeling words" at nursery school (the other day when I was particularly frustrated with either Lukas or Jasper, Zeb asked sweetly, "are you feeling angry, mom?"). I painted five wooden pegs in solid colors and then added stick-figure-esque faces.

Angry Guy, Cool Dude Guy (aka "Glasses Guy"),
Surprised Guy, Happy Guy, and Sad Guy

When I ordered the wooden pegs, I also got some cute little wooden snowmen, and I painted a couple of them for our favorite pair of three-year-olds, Elijah and Aryeh, in honor of the first really snowy day (on which we were supposed to get together and go sledding, but our family never made it due to it being one of those days).

When I was thinking about what we could possibly make for Jaz and Luke's stockings, before I caught the wooden peg characters idea from goosegrease, I thought of making them some magic wands out of sticks. Lena got really excited about that idea, so we decided to go ahead and make them in addition to the Ninjas and the Yodas. Lena collected some fallen maple branches, and whittled them into wand-like sticks. I varnished them with non-toxic acrylic varnish, and Lena added some colored embroidery floss to fancy them up.

Warning: Known to turn people into frogs

For Lena's father, Donald, I followed through with an idea that first came to me last spring. Donald has a bit of a birdhouse collection (some of which he's made, and some that have been given to him over the years). Several months ago I took pictures of the birdhouses scattered about the property, and I just now finally got around to making them into 10 different greeting cards. A few of my favorites:




For Lena's mother, Merka, I made a canvas wood carrier (for carrying chopped wood inside the house). It's basically a large rectangle of canvas with straps. Lena's parents have a new woodstove (in addition to their three fireplaces), so I'm hoping that this will prove quite useful.

For our baby nephew, Tucker, I made a "Splashy" tee:

Together, Lena and I sewed reusable snack bags for all of her siblings and her parents. I lined them with waterproof PUL, and we filled them with chocolate-dipped butter cookies that Lena made with the kids.


People made things for us too! We love receiving handmade gifts almost as much as we love giving them. Lena's mom made us this wonderful mail organizer, which we desperately needed:


Lena's sister Addie made us some reusable snack baggies! And she even personalized them for the kids:

And my little sister, Fiona, drew for us this picture of Lena and me (from a photograph taken nearly 10 years ago):


Christmas morning was just the experience we were hoping it could be, and the kids all handled it so gracefully. It was especially wonderful to see how a reduction in the number of gifts did not put a damper on things at all. Spending the morning exchanging beautiful things with family was just as special and loving as it has always been--even more so, really, in a "less is more" kind of way--and Lena and I felt much less guilty and wasteful about the gift exchange than we have in years past.

I remember how when I was a kid there would always be the inevitable post-holiday letdown, where I'd realize that I had to wait a whole 365 days to experience all the pre-holiday craziness (and FUN!) again. This year I felt a similar sort of inertia after all of the crafting and gift-giving was over. Without a list of "things to make" hanging over my head, I woke up in the morning on the day after Christmas feeling not quite sure about what to do with myself. But then I realized that the most wonderful gift of all, the one that Lena is hard at work making for our whole family, is still definitely a work in progress that won't be done for about 6 more months. Which gives me about 6 months to make up a whole batch of my most favorite things to create--baby things!--and I just can't wait to get started.