NaBloPoMo Day 16!

Friday, December 16, 2011
What was the last handmade gift you gave?




When it comes to "craftiness", I have NONE.  I can't draw, I can't crochet, I can't paint, I can't...nothing.  I SUCK at things like that.  So in trying to come up with what the last "handmade" gift I made was, well, let's just say this one is a bit of a struggle.  The last thing I actually made was the stockings for the pets at work, but they haven't gotten them yet, and they aren't "human", so I'm not going to count that.  I guess I need to go much further back...


When I was a little girl...I don't even know how old, to be honest, but my parents were still married, so sometime before the age of, say, 3, my brother and I, along with the help of my mother, made a garland for the Christmas tree.  She took cut up pieces of straw, about an inch long, and pieces of construction paper cut into 1 inch squares.  She hole punched the center of the squares, and then we alternated between the two onto string.  I don't remember doing it, but I remember it always being on our tree.  To this day, it is on the tree at my mothers house, it's over 30 years old, and slightly beat up and a lot faded, but it's still on that tree.


Several years ago, I was really hurting for money at Christmas.  (seems to be a pattern) I wasn't going to be able to get my mother any gifts, and it was killing me.  Then it hit me...we need to make a new garland.  One from the grandkids.  So my kids and I set out to cutting thousands of 1 inch squares of construction paper, hole punching them, and cutting straws.  Turns out, not any straw will do, because they go right through the hole you punched.  We needed McDonalds straws, they were the only ones that I could think of that would be big enough.


So my oldest daughter, Tennyson, and I headed out to town to get McDonalds straws.  We went in, and go figure, someone was working on the drink machine.  We tried Arbys, too small.  Taco Bell, too small.  Burger King...that was an adventure.  We sat in the parking lot, binoculars in hand, and scoped out the drink station.  It was right next to the registers, so we passed.  We finally ended up taking a bunch from Subway.  Here we were, acting like we were trying to rob a bank, all for straws.  I still wonder how we would have explained that to the cops, had we gotten caught.


So Christmas came, and we presented my mother with her gift.  I guess I didn't realize how  important the garland my brother and I made was to her, because she cried when she opened the new one.  I knew right then that even without money, we had managed to figure out what THE perfect gift was.  


What I DIDN'T realize is that we probably should have measured my mothers tree before making our version.  Needless to say, my mom can now garnish her entire house in our garland, and we even had some left over to put on my brothers new artificial Charlie Brown tree.


That was a good year.

Picture this with white straws, and little squares, not butterflies.  Sorry, it's the closest I could find online.

Because I am writing this one at 3AM, before I have gone to bed, and before the day has even started, I don't really have much to update.  It's Friday, I think, so I have to work this evening.  I made some amazing seasoned oyster crackers and took to work last week, that turned out to be a big hit.  So I am going to spend some time this afternoon making a few batches of those to share again.  I also have some presents to wrap.  Now that all the kids know Santa isn't real, (mackensie was actually told by her TEACHER!  I was sad about that) Christmas just doesn't feel the same.  In addition to that, all the arguing and such going on in this house, it's just hard to get into the spirit.  I just want Christmas over.  I really am just hoping that a new year brings a new lifestyle, or at least a bunch of surprises.  I'm ready.