I'll be Home(made) for Christmas

I agree that Christmas has become far too commercialized. And in a perfect world where I would be blessed with homemaking talents as well as the talent of patience, then I could be like my friend who is totally awesome and did an (almost) completely homemade Christmas. Her kids even participated with amazingly crafty gifts. So great. I, however, don't have that much talent. So I relied on Walmart and Amazon to provide most of the Christmas magic.

But about a week before the 25th I got a hankerin' for Homemakerin'. I had that talented friend o' mine come over and exercise nearly all of her patience (I'm sure) on attempting to teach me how to make some darling little man ties. Then I had another talented friend over to tackle the feat of educating me on the art of hair-bow making. It was all back-breaking work (for me who has a bad back) but I was pretty pleased with the results.....

Evan was thrilled with his big boy ties.

The green ties were for my two nephews and a little hair clip to match for their sister. Results below......

I have to confess that the hair bows were probably more for me than for Zion who is content to pull them out twice daily. But she looks darn cute while they're in.

Now for my favorite "HOME"made gift. It was for my twin sister. She wanted some storage drawers for her cute little coat-rack cubbies. So Greg and I put our talents together. He made these professionally constructed drawers and I decorated them with wood letters and mod-podged paper. I was seriously more giddy to see the surprise on Tara's face when this gift was opened Christmas morning, than I was to see the excitement on my own children's faces. It was a hit.

There really is something to be said for giving a homemade gift. It was special to me to put in so much time, effort, love, and thoughtfulness. And isn't it really the

Thought that Counts?!