What a Life!

I must confess, usually my Christmas shopping is done – everything has been purchased and any projects are well on their way to being done – in October. This year, ’twas not to be. This week I am finally getting my act together and figuring out what gifts we will be giving.

That means (a) if I’m ordering things online, I’m up against the wall with shipping deadlines. Not just shipping to me but to the recipient as well. Considering how much ice is on the roads at the moment, online shopping is my only option…which doubles the urgency. And (b) if I am to make anyone anything, time is of the essence, to put it mildly.

Yesterday my head was spinning. I had a headache for the second day in a row and so my husband again asked for an accounting of what was going on. Last time, he wanted to know what was on my wish list. As you could tell by my comments the other day, telling my husband what I wanted only emphasized the fantasy nature of my list. When I confess my shopping list, the fantasy will only grow larger.

You see, every year, I try to average $10-out-of-pocket per person. I know, that sounds incredibly cheap. But I try to give gifts that are valued in the $40 to $50 range, depending on how you add things up.

First of all, everyone gets calendars with the best of my pictures of the boys over the course of the year. Those have a retail value of $20 each. My parents own a printshop and make these for me. Supposedly they subtract the wholesale value of those calendars from my Christmas present every year. I never try to figure out how much they spend (or don’t spend) on me so essentially, it costs me nothing. And everyone loves those calendars.

Then, pictures of the boys. My favorite pictures were always done by Erica over at Images for a Lifetime. Her rates, in addition to any sitting fee, are $12 for a 4×6, $18 for a 5×7 and $30 for an 8×10. For that reason, people who got excited every year over JCPenny pictures got JCPenny pictures (Steve’s family). In fact, I have never hung any of the pictures I bought for us from Erica because I am embarrassed that I didn’t buy them for everybody – their quality makes JCPenny pictures look awful. I bought the nicer pictures for my parents, in part, because they did the calendars for me every year. And my sister and her husband see those pictures, so they get some of the same.

Let’s say my pictures are better than JCPenny and at least half as good as Erica’s. If I give a picture of each boy, two 4×6’s are valued at $12 and two 5x7s are $18. This year, everyone is getting pictures that I have taken, so we’re up to $32 for uncles and aunts (they get 4x6s) and $38 for grandparents (with 5x7s). Out-of-pocket costs – minimal.

[And no, it doesn’t cost me that much to print out a 4×6 or 5×7 at Walgreens. But it doesn’t cost the pros much more than that either, but they charge what they do because (a) they use good – expensive – equipment and (b) they work very hard to perfect their skills so they can produce pictures worthy of such prices. I, too, have more than just an everyday camera, and I also work very hard to perfect my skills in order to improve the quality of my pictures. My goal for next year is to improve both my skills and my equipment so that my pictures are worthy of 2/3 to 3/4 of what Erica charges. Alissa‘s would be 100% Erica-value, in my opinion, and she’s just a mom taking pictures of her kids, using a good camera that she’s worked hard to learn how to use. I want to be like her.]

But selecting which pictures to use this year. Oh my! I have plenty of 8×10 worthy photos of Joey, but with Ben, it’s a different story. In part, I have more pictures of Joey than Ben – he’s little, he does lots of cute things, and he’s growing so quickly. I have cute pictures of Ben, but in most of them, he’s wearing tattered play clothes. I have lots of 4×6-worthy pictures, some 5×7-worthy, but 8×10-worthy? I look at the pictures and think, I’m going to have to stare at that klutzy picture for years to come – do I really want to make an 8×10 out of that? Oh, the agony! {You can go here and view the current contenders.}

Right now, these two are the top picks:

But, then again, I could set up the Christmas tree and somehow magically manage to get a good picture of both the boys in the outfits I had planned to take Christmas pictures in. I’m thinking the tree might get set up downstairs this year. Joey doesn’t go downstairs very often, and I would put the tree next to the bookcase, which, together, might create a pretty good backdrop for a picture. Otherwise, it’s too cold to take pictures outside without heavy jackets, and there aren’t really any other good places to go inside the house. I have a friend who purchased a backdrop she uses to take photos of her kids, but it is gray and the boys sweaters are charcoal – I’m thinking that wouldn’t work very well. And say I do find a good place to take pictures of them, the next trick is actually getting wall-worthy shots of the two of them together. Steve thought my Christmas wish list was a fantasy – it ain’t nothin’ compared to my holiday shopping list. Oh my!

Regardless, people will get calendars and pictures because that’s what we do every year and everyone seems to love it. Now that I’m an aunt, I have a whole new understanding of the thrill of such simple things.

But I feel bad stopping there. So I try to do one little extra personal thing for everyone. That’s where the $10-thing comes in. I feel rather stupid giving someone a $10 gift card or something that I purchased that they know cost only $10, even if it was on their wish list. A $30 or $40 choice from someone’s wish list would be more respectable, but that adds up quickly.

Back when I learned to knit, my motivation was, in part, the fact that longies (wool pants that serve as diaper covers over cloth diapers) cost $70 and upward per pair but the yarn only costs around $20. Granted, a lot of time and effort goes into knitting a pair of longies, and even at the prices those longies sell for, you do not get rich knitting longies. Fifty dollars profit for ten hours of your time works out to a mere $5/hr.

And handmade gifts are tricky. Yes, a lot of time and love goes into them – which is something I happen to have in abundance. But you have to understand, no one will appreciate the effort you put into them. Even as a knitter, I know that I do not fully appreciate the value of a knitted gift when I am given one. A cute sweater is a cute sweater – you don’t necessarily think about the time and love that went into making it, and even if you try, it’s just something that is hard to appreciate fully.

And no one really ever asks for handmade gifts. I’ve given handmade gifts that were appreciated in the past. I’ve received handmade gifts that I didn’t initially appreciate but came to treasure as time went by. But a handknit gift carries the same risk that a purchased gift carries – the receiver may not appreciate it as much or be as excited about it as you might have hoped. Considering the time and effort that goes into making such a thing, it comes as no surprise that crafting forums always contain threads about recipients not appreciating gifts that were bestowed, especially this time of year. It’s an easy trap to fall into.

But some of the best gifts I’ve received were things that weren’t on my wish list. Some of them were even handmade. So I take the risk and give handmade gifts anyway. Sometimes I try things on my husband first, especially things for the guys. One year I made Steve some Broad Street Mittens and his brother just drooled over them. If I have enough time when all else is said and done, Schon may get his own pair this year. That would be an example of the thought process behind handmade gifts I give.

And ultimately, when you give a gift, whether it is purchased or handmade, giving it means letting go of it. You may have spent all this time and effort shopping for it or making it. It may or may not be a hit worthy of what you put into it. It may not be appreciated initially as you hoped it might be. But you have to let go of it. Pour your love into the giving of a gift, and leave it at that. If the recipient really does not like or use it, then there is nothing wrong with their passing it on to someone who does. In my opinion, the time and effort someone puts into giving a gift is best honored by seeing to it that it is used and loved, if not by yourself, then by someone else. If something is a burden to you – taking up space in your closet or drawer, by all means, pass it on; a gift that becomes a burden is the worst sort of gift that one can give. If nothing else, the giver gave you an opportunity to feel good about giving to someone else less fortunate. Less fortunate is certainly not limited to charity – it can also include friends and family who see something you have that they would use and love far more than you would ever do.

My only extra insurance policy for handmade gifts is that I do not give anything that I do not enjoy making – it must be a pattern I like, out of materials I like, and in colors that I like. If nothing else, I can say I enjoyed making the item, though that is certainly not why I give handmade gifts. I do not bestow things on people that I do not think they will use and love, even if it is only an occasional use item. Gifts are not an excuse for me to spend money on yarn and feed my knitting (or sewing…or cooking) habit. Rather, handmade gifts are a way for me to give from what I have been blessed – my time and talents. After all, money is not the only currency in gift-giving.

The same could be said for purchased gifts. People talk about scoring at the Dollar Store, and then they complain about getting gifts that are just junk that fill up their closet. The key to a good gift isn’t how much money – or time – you spend; rather, it is how well it is matched to the recipient. If they would really like that item you found at the Dollar Store, by all means, buy it and give it to them. But if you’re buying just so you can check another name off the list, you might want to think twice about what you are doing.

In fact, I will go even further out on a limb here and say that I measure a gift in how much it makes someone happy, not how much I spent on it. I may say I try to average $10-out-of-pocket per person, but I may spend $40 on one person and $4 on another (or 3 hours making a gift for one person and 30 hours making a gift for another) and feel no guilt on account of not treating them “equally.” I measure the value of a gift in how excited I think the person will be to receive it. I’m not always right in what I anticipate, but the intention is the same for each and every person on the list.

Now, this is not to say that everyone is obligated to give handmade gifts. Believe me, if I had lots of money, I would shower it generously. Gifts of money are appreciated more by people who don’t have as much than by those who have more of it. Again, it’s all in matching the gift to the recipient as well as giving from what you have been blessed. One person might scoff at a $10 gift card to Starbucks while another might be thrilled. There is no single Perfect Gift for everyone.

Enough for now. In a future post, I will talk about my gift-giving plans for Steve and the boys this year. It will give you a whole new perspective on my $10-out-of-pocket thing. I really should post it sooner than later since it might save me from looking ridiculous any longer than necessary as I am certain I have made quite a fool out of myself with this post. But the clock is ticking, and I need to spend some time doing rather than talking…