Is anyone else still working on their gifts?

[piratesmate]

Every year I start earlier & earlier. Every year I'm up until all hours trying to finish one last project. Every year I'm still working on the IL's gifts the day after Christmas because we always get together with them over New Year's.

This year I was so sure I'd be done early. Of course I went through the usual things that went wrong - only this year things kept going horribly wrong. I started one project over 4x... with different paper, different pens, different - well you get the idea.

I'm finally closing in on the end of the project - a whole day early! :jumping4: I just have to apply a coat of polyurethane to some game pieces & a set of dice I made. I need to iron the pirate map to set the paint. Then I need to frame the frakturs (the project that I've re-done so many times). After that I only have to bake cookies, prepare my dishes for Christmas Day, put the icicles on the tree (not tinsel ~3 dozen glass ones) and clean the house again.

I'm tired just typing that list! If anything else goes wrong, I'm going to just go visit without gifts.

 

[TN Traveler]

Hey Deb, Does this give you any idea of where I am--it's Christmas night and I'm on Disney sight reading msgs from 12/23!! My goal was to have my Disney album completed by Christmas b/c I knew one of my cousins was coming in town and it had been MONTHS since I had seen her. Well, after attending a travel agent seminar in Ft Lauderdale the first wknd of the month and then having 3 parties in 2 days the following wknd and having 3 group cruises to work on plus other stuff, I haven't picked up my scrapping since BEFORE Thanksgiving!! I was at Wal-Mart finishing up shopping on the 23rd and wrapping presents until midnight that night!! I was so far behind I never did put up the garland, nativity scene and other decorations around the house like we do every year!! Even worse, I didn't hang the girls' stockings -- just laid them in the floor in the usual spot where Santa sets the presents!! Isn't that terrible?!! I promise to do better next year!!
Hope all worked out for you anyway!!
Karen........aka TN Traveler

 

[piratesmate]

I swear I'm not making any presents next year unless I start them in August!!

The pirate map project I did for DS turned out okay, but wasn't without its problems. When I ironed it to heat set it, some of the paint pulled off the fabric. I have no idea what happened. The important thing was that DS loved it.

When I tried to frame the fraktur pieces, I found that I'd measured one wrong & it didn't fit in the mat. The paper I'd put it on was a weird shape & looked awful in the frame without the mat. Since that was the only gift for my sister, I had to do it over AGAIN! (I'd already done that at least 2ce before!) I finished it at 4 & we left for her house at 4:30. I didn't like it as well as the original, but it was okay.

As we finally wrapped the frakturs this morning, I realized that I was one short for DH's family...and instead of visiting with them at New Year's we're going tomorrow. So I'll be spending the rest of the night (literally I'm afraid) doing another one.

I'm not kidding...no handmade gifts next year! Somebody remind me in November, okay?

I hope things are a bit calmer for you now Karen!

 

[LindaBabe]

It wouldn't surprise me, Karen, if your family had a wonderful Christmas despite all the things you 'didn't do' ! And that, hopefully, will serve as a reminder next year that you needn't do everything, put up every trimming, etc, just because you always have done, in order to make Christmas special.

We had always decorated to the hilt - indoors and out. In 1998, when I graduated from college (at 50), I celebrated by going to WDW with my neighbor, the first week in December, and I delegated the decorating to my husband. When I came home, we had a tree, a wreath on the door, and his favorite - a pair of stuffed snowmen - on top of the clock. That's it! If that's all it takes to make Christmas for him, Why am I obsessing my way through three trunks full of stuff? Since then, I have seriously downsized my Holidays. Simple meals. A few gifts - bought not made (unless there is some single thing that I do well and someone craves - this year it was a scrapbook for mil made of copies of significant pages from our books). Time spent with friends and family. Christmas comes and is just as merry - in fact, perhaps more so - because we're all rested!