Make it personal this Christmas (Homemade Christmas Presents)

Member Name: lellagrace

Product:	Homemade Christmas Presents
Date:	14/12/06 (487 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Saves trekking around the shops

Disadvantages: Needs time!

HOME MADE CHRISTMAS PRESENTS


Reading this title brought back to me wonderful memories of childhood Christmases when home made Christmas presents were amongst those left for us by Santa.

My grandfather was a craftsman and one year he made a dolls’ house - from an old wooden radio cabinet would you believe! Grandma made dolls from clothes pegs and dressed them in clothes she had made from scraps of material in her work basket and the furniture was made from matchboxes.

Another gift they made was a shop, I think this was made from an old wooden box, and it had counters in with trays for produce. There were tiny vegetables and fruits modelled out of plastiscine, and again a peg doll, only this time she was dressed in an apron and was the shop assistant.

My brother had a string puppet which grandfather had made, lovingly carved and painted to resemble one of the animals we loved to watch on tv puppet shows. My new Christmas dolls always had a new wardrobe of clothes too, all lovingly sewn or knitted by my grandma. And for our Christmas parties there was always a hand knitted cardigan and a new dress for me and my sister, again lovingly made by grandma.

Of course when we were so small we didn’t realise these gifts had been made for us by our grandparents, but I remember when I was about 9 years old and an aunt made me an apron. I can remember being very disappointed that it wasn’t a toy, and I was even more upset when an older cousin told me that the apron had been made by my aunt and not by Santa!

When my own children were small they used to love helping me make home made Christmas gifts, but as I am not very good at needlework these were mostly goods from the kitchen.

I invested in some chocolate moulds – some years ago you could send off for these from the company who made cooking chocolate and I bought some Santa moulds, complete with foil wrappers. My children loved helping me melt the chocolate and fill the moulds, then wrap the chocolate santas to hang on the tree. Nowadays you can buy the moulds at lots of cooking shops and also at Lakeland plastics, by mail order if you don’t have a shop near you.

When the childrens’ advent calendars were empty, I retrieved the plastic inners where the chocolate had been and re-used them the following Christmas to make more Christmas tree chocolates.

I then progressed to making hand made chocolates to give to relatives. I experimented with recipes and a favourite is to soak cherries in brandy, then wrap them in marzipan before coating them in chocolate. Other fillings are made from cream and toffee and I also make fruit shapes using marzipan. I save the plastic trays from supermarket produce, line them with a Christmas doyley or tissue paper, and pop the sweets in then wrap the tray in cellophane, tied with ribbon.

When making my Christmas cakes I always make a large one, the size of the bottom tier of a wedding cake, and cut this into smaller squares. I then marzipan and/or ice each of these and wrapped in cellophane and decorated with ribbons, they make lovely gifts for elderly relatives.

This year I have made calendars for some of the family, using photographs which were taken at a family get together and I have sent these instead of the usual Christmas card. If you have a photo editing programme on your computer these are easy to produce, and use paper from Poundland (see an earlier review of mine) and you have an inexpensive calendar!

I do make my own Christmas cards too, this is a hobby I have had for some years and I start early in the year. Sometimes I use copies of my own paintings on the cards, which adds a more personal touch.

Having invested in a laminator this year, I have used this to make table mats to give as gifts, using photographs which I have taken and printed off from the computer. I did a set of black and white photos of old buildings in the area where we live and they look very good and are a lovely gift for a relative who has moved away. I am also about to do some colourful place mats with cute Christmas pictures, they will be useful for the kids to use at Christmas.

All this home made gift making takes up a lot of time, but there is a lot of love put into it and I don’t think of it as work at all. The benefits are enormous, it enables me to choose something individual for my loved ones and if I buy everything I need in advance it saves me from trekking around the shops searching for ideas what to buy. Of course, I don’t make all my gifts, there are still a lot to buy too, but sometimes I tuck in a home made present as well, which really gives a personal touch.

Hope you all have some inspiration from my ideas and don’t worry if you think you have left it too late for this year, there is always next Christmas!

Summary: Give them your love with a home made Christmas gift.