Flavored Butter of the Month Club

I just might be more proud of this gift than any other.  It's not that the gift itself is so wonderful, but the difficulty in determining a gift for its recipients (let alone a homemade one) renders it ingenious.


My dad and my husband's dad: two great, happy, impossible-to-shop-for guys.  They truly don't want anything.  So one day I was torturing myself, trying to think of something - anything - to make for my father-in-law.  In frustration, I said aloud, "I can't make him anything!  All he likes is biking and butter!"  Ah, butter.  The first love of both these fine, frequently carb-cutting men.  Inspiration struck and I started a club.  They will receive twelve fresh batches of different compound butters, one each month.


I started with rosemary butter and it turned out a bit salty, but tasty nonetheless.  Orange butter is next up, but I don't have firm plans after that, so please feel free to share ideas and/or recipes.


I didn't take a picture, but rest assured, the butter was pretty.


Cost: about $24 for butter (I hate paying more than $2/lb) and a negligible amount for rosemary.  I'm not sure how much I'll end up spending on other flavorings, so we'll guess maybe $35 total?

Felted Sweater Bag

When I spotted this wool sweater at Savers, I thought of my awesome mother-in-law.  So I bought it, washed and dried it on hot, cut off the sleeves, and sewed up the bottom.  Voila!

I wish the bag were a bit deeper, but with the size of the shrunken sweater, there was nothing to be done.  I don't think they would have had the same pattern in men's extra large.


Cost: $5 for sweater

Cozy Slipper Socks

My sister's house has some hard, cold flooring, so what better to make for her and her husband than these very chunky, very warm slipper socks?

I've been kicking against the idea of knitting socks for a long time now, thinking it would just be way too tedious and hard.  These were not that bad.  I realize the needle and yarn sizes are ten times those that I would use for normal socks, but this could certainly be considered my gateway project to real live socks.  Still, don't hold your breath.


Cost: $9 for yarn
I used Lion Brand Thick & Quick, which I was lucky to find on sale at Michael's for $4.50 a skein.  Normally it's around $7.


Hidden Cost: While making these, Devin and I fell in love with them so I had to make two more pairs for us.

Get Ready for the Motherload

I did it!  I pulled off a homemade Christmas!  Well, it was mostly homemade, which is what I was going for.  Forced planning ahead made for a much more relaxed December.  Somehow I still ended up with a bunch of last-minute things to do, but that had more to do with forgetfulness than anything else.  Everyone either liked their gifts or faked it well enough to suit me, so I'm a happy camper.

In addition to the more relaxed month, the benefits of homemade giving included:

• not setting foot inside a mall during the rush
• watching lots of movies with my husband while I knitted or painted (he explained to recipients that he made this sacrifice for the sake of their gifts)
• learning some new skills
• saving money
• avoiding that empty feeling I usually get when I rack my brains to think of a gift, finally buy something mediocre, and then realize how dumb the whole exercise was

I've been thinking a lot lately about the whole point of Christmas and wondering how much of what we do during the season is good or bad or distracting or just plain excessive.  We simplified our holiday this year in a lot of ways.  We did no Christmas cards, no neighbor gifts and fewer presents.  And you guessed it - I really didn't miss any of it.  It freed up more time for better things: walking my son around the city's Christmas Village and looking into every single window; watching "Elf" with friends while the kids guzzled barely-hot cocoa out of sippy cups; making sugar cookies and not caring about the distorted stars or the gingerbread man's stretched-out arms; letting normal life coexist with the Christmas season instead of putting everything on hold until "things settle down."

To summarize, this Christmas was awesome.  And it was just the cherry (or I guess you could say a whole bottle of maraschinos) on top of a great year of homemade gift-giving.  I think I'll do it again this year.  Anyone joining me?

Watch for lots of gift posts coming soon!  Happy New Year!