Just before the holidays, I felt impelled to think about making all the presents for people. Here’s how it actually played out.

Handmade Holiday Gifts:

- Home-made Biscotti — I made chocolate almond with orange zest biscotti, and drizzled them with chocolate. Then I put together little plates of these cookies and gave a plate to my mom, one to my in-laws, and one to my grandmother in law.

- Pictures in frames / books — Not exactly homemade, but personal at least. I gave some photos of the kiddos to all of the above.

- Pumpkin Butter – I gave a jar of my homemade pumpkin butter to my mother in law.

- A handmade knit hat – It wasn’t knit by me, but it was really nice. Gave to my mom.

Re-gifted… I gave a crystal water pitcher to my mom. I think it will go better in her china cabinet than mine.

I did not write my children’s book to give to my kids (should really get around to that. Maybe for next year?!)

I did not sew anything this year. (Too bad, I love sewing!)

I did make a really nice big dinner on Christmas — that was fun and tasty too.

It was a good year for handmade stuff, in general. I will try to do more throughout the year, in hopes that next year I can do Handmade Holidays again.

Baby steps, right?

So, you know how Christmas is NOT supposed to be all about getting things? Well, it’s not. At least I don’t feel that it is for me and my family. My kids certainly do love getting gifts and they might like that just a tad more than anything else. Meanwhile, since I am not religious, at all, it’s not really about God or Christ, either. I also celebrate Hanukkah with my family, though we aren’t Jewish (though some relatives on my husband’s side of the family are actually Jewish.) I do light the candles on the menorah and think about miracles of oil lasting, but I don’t really connect with that on any kind of LITERAL level.

So one may find it at first a little odd, if they were to peek in our window (but not in a creepy way, thanks) to see what traditions we have around here. I like to make HAM for Christmas. Christmas and Hanukkah overlap, often enough, so there are times when we have a nice big HAM on the same table as a MENORAH. Is this sacrilegious? Ham is made from the noble creature, the pig. Pork is a big NO-NO of course, never being kosher no matter how much one may pray over it. Our Christmas tree was itty bitty, and some of my houseplants were about equally adorned.

We do hang stockings by the fire with care. And I love singing Christmas carols – and even am guilty of going to Pandora.com and playing Christmas music for hours on end.

Not everyone likes this sort of thing, this casual adaptation of religious holidays. I know the cynical folks out there are likely to scoff at us, thinking we are wrong to celebrate holidays when we are not religious.

But my point is that there are a series of traditions we follow. They don’t exactly go together, this mixed bag of delights. Lighting the menorah and eating ham, or singing Christmas carols but also reciting a prayer in Hebrew — a language I don’t speak at all other than to know this ONE prayer for lighting of candles on Hanukkah.

And what is the purpose of celebrating a holiday that is associated with a religion that you don’t even participate in??

The purpose is simple. It’s family. It’s being home with people you love. It’s taking time and effort to make traditions that are fun and real and loving. This isn’t about some external commandment to be a certain way. This is about finding the love and the home and the family.

So I had a great Hannumas/Chrismakkah, and it wasn’t all about What I Got for Christmas.

However, that said, I got some GREAT STUFF. I asked for– and received– a Rice Cooker and a cotton duvet for my silk comforter. Tonight I made my first rice dinner in the rice cooker, and it was really easy, and fun. My thoughtful inlaws also got me a big cookbook to go with the rice cooker– it has a zillion recipes of things that you can make in a rice cooker. (Rice! Brown Rice! Basmati Rice! Sticky Rice! Fluffy Rice!) Seriously, though, you can also use this appliance for steaming veggies, and you can make all-in-one meals by dicing other ingredients and mixing with the rice.

Tonight I used leftovers plus rice to make a really savory dish. I diced leftover Christmas ham (naturally raised, no anti-biotics, humanely treated, local pig: what we around here call “Happy Pig”) and artichoke heart, tossed in some sweet corn that I’d put up in the freezer this summer, and about a half cup of diced leek. Together with basmati rice, this was a really nice little dinner. Carla and Annie even said it was good!

The duvet is nice, too. I took a nap under it today, while my children systematically destroyed the house played nicely together downstairs.

I am so much enjoying my time off. The kids are, too. We went to NYC yesterday and had a really fun time. We did a bunch of walking, and also managed to spend some time in taxi cabs as well. It was a beautiful day, and we successfully navigated the city, taking in Rockerfeller Center and its enormous Christmas tree, as well as visiting the American Girl store. My kids got to each bring home a little pet from there– a cat named Licorice and a dog named Sugar.

Licorice was especially exciting because Annie has been wanting Licorice for over a year. We went to the store, figuring we could simply get a Licorice cat. When we asked one associate about it, we were told that Licorice had been discontinued– in fact pulled from the shelves to make way for their new inventory. Oh No! But then one other person working there suddenly said, “oh wait! Looks like there’s JUST ONE LEFT!”

So there it was… THE LAST LICORICE CAT LEFT IN THE ENTIRE WORLD, or so says Annie. She was so sad for the rest of the world, that nobody else would ever be able to get a Licorice, but she was pretty delighted to have snatched up the VERY LAST ONE, anyway.

After we successfully rescued Licorice and Sugar from the store, we hopped into a cab on Madison Avenue –

[Me: Mom, if we walk over to Madison, we can get a cab from there, it goes in the right direction. Mom: Oh, OK. (starts walking in wrong direction) Me: Mom, Madison Avenue is THIS way. (Thinking: Who's the one who isn't WITH IT?)]

– and off we went to Central Park West, where we snacked on hotdogs from a vendor (ew…. I know…. but it is kind of a NYC tradition… yuck) and a variety of kid-friendly foods that I’d packed. After that, we braved the ultra crowded American Museum of Natural History. I think we closely examined every single mineral, precious stone, and gem in the large and incredible gem room. We marveled at the dinosaur bones. We oogled the meteorites. We dashed through quickly but admiringly observing the many different skulls of mankind. It really brings to the forefront the fact that humans are just one species of many– Evolution is real! Wow, neato!

Then via taxi we headed back to Penn station, and a train ride back home. A very full day. I really enjoyed that last taxi ride, because we went down Broadway and I got to see Times Square.

I like NYC. It’s all crowded and bustle-y. But I am glad to be home. I spent today in my pajamas. Yay for winter breaks.

I hope all of you out there got what you wanted for Christmas– and I wish you all a very Happy New Year.

About a week ago, I started making some handmade Christmas cards — holiday cards, if you prefer. Seasonal greeting cards, perhaps. I started by seeking out fun or interesting or nice quotes (thanks, google!) and then doodling these quotes on some pretty scrap paper that I happen to have in a pile on my desk. I added some color (oil pastels, markers, color pencils, whatever was at hand) and created a few cards.

As I was making the cards, I started to wonder: Is it possible for me to make this a Handmade Holiday season? What if I make it a goal to give 100% home made / hand made gifts to my friends and family? And, dare I say, even to my CHILDREN? Or would they be scarred for life?

Probably, they would not be scarred. For one thing, Santa will bring them stuff his elves in China have been hard at work making. For another, Grandma and Nonna will surely fill in where Santa leaves off. So, it’s not like I’m saying, hey kiddo, here’s some schlocky thing your Momma made you, instead of that fabulous pthalate-filled item that you really, really, wanted.

But really, what if I make something for everyone on my list? My list of gifts would look something like this:

Fleece Winter Hat
Rag Doll
Home made Coloring Book
Cookies
Biscotti
Fleece Scarf
Handmade Felt Critters
Sock Puppet
Handmade Felt Puppets
Throw Quilt
Quilted Pot Holder
Handmade Place Mats
Handmade Napkins
Homemade Pumpkin Butter with Loaf of Pumpkin Bread
Decorative Recipe Book
Homemade Calendar with Kids Photos
(Write & Illustrate my own) Picture Book

Tell me, honestly, does this sound cheap or tacky? An inherently bad idea? Ridiculously impractical? I mean, for me — remember, I wrote a novel last month. What can stop me now?

I want to give people nice things, but I really don’t have much money to spend. I want to emphasize the thought, rather than the spending. I want to avoid impulse purchases, annoying clutter, holiday hatred, shopping malls, muzak, and rabid consumerism.

I even like the sound of this idea: Handmade Holidays. I haven’t googled this phrase yet, as I want to continue (even if briefly) to enjoy the fantasy that I thought this idea up with complete originality and incredible vision. Ahem.

Have a Handmade Holiday!

It’s that time of year again: the season of giving, and receiving. The season of surprises and feasts, decorations and treats, excited children, coats and hats, and family get togethers.

Christmas arrives in just under three weeks– Hanukkah will be here a few days before Christmas. I write this now, in an attempt to win “Incredibly Obvious Post of the Year.” Also, to try to help myself move on from my sense of denial. I am not at all sure what happened to November, though of course I did write a novel towards the end of the month, if you can call it that. It took me a while to recover — physically — from the incredible strain caused by typing 50,000+ words. Yes, it was physically painful! But I did it!

So now what? I am trying to come to grips with the idea that we have to decide what to do about the holidays. My mom is lobbying hard to ask me to come to her house, though she’s indicated that she would be wiling to come stay with us. If that is going to happen, I need to put aside a couple hundred bucks for a house cleaner to come and take apart the house again. Or else maybe, I need to afix a fanny rocket to my derriere, drink a case of Red Bull, and go bonkers doing it myself.

On the other hand, my dad has invited us to Florida, which we’ve done a couple times now, and it was really quite lovely. He lives in the Fort Myers Beach area, in a double-wide with an orange tree behind it. There’s a pool just down the lane, and the kids love it there. I enjoy it a lot, too, and to be honest I would rather go visit my dad in Florida, than stay up at my mom’s or else go insane trying to bring my home up to mom’s standards.

Alas, it is pricey as heck to travel this year, and not only would it be tough to pay for airfare, but Drob is also lacking in time off, so that is kind of off the table. Which makes me sad — who knows if this will even be an option next year.

Then there’s the question of presents for everyone. Hmmm. Can we just skip presents this year? The kids say “no.” They have already made lists of what they want, one for each of them, and one for each of our three cats. I wonder why they didn’t make a list for me and their dad?