Double Vision: Santa's Workshop

Every year around mid-November a mild panic sets in as we realize that although we have thought about it for roughly a year, the time is quickly approaching for Santa’s Little Workshop to fire back up again. About four years ago my family decided that it would be fun to MAKE our gifts for one another. Always up for a challenge we all happily agreed without fully understanding what level of commitment this would actually take to pull off. But off we went anyway and a tradition was born. Well, for the fourth straight year, Jill and I spent a weekend with Master Craftsman Glenn, (who rivals Bob Villa) and her aunt Rita (who is our artistic director) crafting our projects. I myself am not the most “handy” of men and so thank goodness that Glenn is there to make sure that I don’t cut my hand off with a saw or shoot the nail gun into my foot, but I am proud to say that we do the majority of the work. Glenn instructs and models and then we take over. Jill and I each have our specific jobs and what comes out is generally a good gift. And by crafting our gifts we have found that even though the projects always take a little bit longer than what we first thought, or we hit a snag or two along the way, there really is something to this gift making. We have found that we really take pride in what we are making. We have also learned that by giving (and receiving) a gift that was hand-made you know that the person giving it had to give up their time and expend a lot of energy and effort to make the gift. Simply said, it makes us look at the gift in a different way and we form a different kind of appreciation for the giver.

Even though we won’t start making our presents for 2009 until December 20th (we always wait until the last minute) we are already looking forward to what we can make for everyone next year. And remember, suggestions are welcome!

This year we made the game "washers." It was a popular game when we lived in St. Louis and I call it a city version of horseshoes.