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This season, try your hand at
homemade Christmas Gifts
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[December 08, 2024]
What is your idea of a homemade gift? Is that
even a thing anymore? Does anyone remember the days when you’d get a
gift of homemade jam or jelly with a cute cut-out piece of holiday
material with a red or green ribbon around the metal lid? Or a
basket of homemade rolled sugar cookies cut out into snowmen and
trees, peanut brittle, fudge, or divinity? What about the
cross-stitch holiday tea towels, knitted garland, hand-painted
ceramic Christmas tree with little plastic bulbs, or a personalized
ornament?
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 Once
upon a time there were even cookbooks with tear-out directions that
were written specifically for the recipients of those homemade
gifts. Most of those were geared towards using the ever-popular
mason jars with the metal lids and with recipes for hot chocolate
mixes, cookie and brownie mixes and various winter soups.
Or could the thought of homemade gifts give you flashbacks to a
horrible memory like a sweater grandma made and insisted you wear to
the dinner table. Only grandma didn’t notice that one sleeve was
longer than the other and the knitted Christmas tree ornaments were
put on with large safety pins and placed in a humorous
conversational position?
With the ease of online shopping, gift cards, and money holders,
does this generation even know what homemade gifts are? What is your
memory of homemade gifts? As a youngster, memories of homemade gifts
were everywhere, mainly prompted from the creative minds of our
teachers such as Christmas clay decorations, to woodworking signs or
holiday wreaths.
If the idea of making something for a special person
with your hands interests you, there are all kinds of craft stores,
isles dedicated to DIYs, and kits to make almost anything from
t-shirts and blankets to drinking cups to candles and soaps. Whether
you already have a hobby, thinking about starting a hobby, or going
back to an old hobby, you have multiple outlets to get ideas and
supplies or classes to get you going. And if you get stuck, the
internet is full of resources and online stores.
Time has a way of changing old traditions, while starting new ones.
And let’s be honest, one of those traditions, at least in this day
and age, most kids just don’t understand the planning, work and time
homemade gifts take. In all fairness, with the fast paced
environment of the computer age, should we really expect that?
Let me give you a challenge, and that is to take one of those kids
or their kids and plan a day with them making some of your favorite
homemade gifts to give to others in a nursing home or elder
community. Maybe, just maybe, the art of giving something made with
the hands and thought of by the heart will take hold with this
younger generation and perhaps….. maybe, just maybe, that kid will
remember that time and that feeling of making something by
themselves and pass the memory of that day or item down to their
next generation.
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Here are a few ideas and links to get you started on
thinking about the perfect homemade gift for that special person:
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53 Crafty, Creative DIY Christmas Gifts
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100 DIY Christmas Gifts Your Family and Friends Will Love
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Christmas Hands-on Activities | Education.com
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DIY Christmas Gifts - Almost Homemade Christmas Gift Ideas
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My Ultimate List of Creative DIY Christmas Gift Ideas under $25 |
The DIY Mommy
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200 Cheap and Easy DIY Christmas Gifts - Prudent Penny Pincher
[JA Hodgdon-Ruppel]
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