Monday, October 26, 2009

Outsourcing my DIY Holiday

Knowing my limits is not something I've ever been good at. That's why I was forced to give up Martyrdom for lent last year. I tend to take on too many tasks and then end up throwing myself an ice cream and hot fudge pity party for myself at 3AM trying to pull everything together.

No where has this been more true than Christmas. I love handmade Christmas gifts. Every fall I get crafty little daydreams and create big lists of things I will make by December 25th, like the year I decided to hand embroider monogrammed tea towels for each of my coworkers in their favourite colour.

This year I have had to concede that my DIY basment remodel isn't going to leave me adequate time for an entirely DIY Christmas, so I've decided to outsource some of the crafting and just buy stuff on Etsy. The first of my treasures arrived today. I bought two of these mermaid soaps, one in purple for Cheyenne and one in pink for Isabella. This is going to be a Santa gift.


This is the year the girls decided to ask if Santa was real. I wish they would have asked their father. I give entirely too much information. It turned into a big explanation about how Santa Claus is really a third century bishop from what is now called Turkey who supposedly gave dowry money to a poor man who had three daughters. Which led to the inevitable questions, "what is a dowry?" and "so Santa Claus is dead?" Neither of which, I am sad to say, had a handy sugar coated explanation. Suffice it to say my cheerfully morbid little girls have been gleefully showing off their newfound knowledge by telling just about everyone they meet that "Santa is dead!" Why couldn't I have left it at "yes?" It wouldn't be a lie. He was real, and if I'd thought of that in time I'd probably have spared a few of their little friends some trauma.

On a lighter note, I also ordered this lovely for two of my closest friends. That's right. It's glow in the dark Eric Northman soap. Mmmmm.


4 comments:

  1. My daughter asked if Santa was real last year. I used one of my favorite responses,
    "What do you think?"
    to buy myself some more time to think.
    It turned out that she wanted to talk about what she had heard from kids on the bus and at school, more than she wanted an absolute answer from me. Whew!

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  2. I wish I had been that quick on my feet! I'm going to store the "what do you think?" answer for future use.

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  3. Oh, I cringe, remembering how one conversation about the Easter Bunny progressed in similar fashion!
    You're smart to know your limits--I love handmade, but Etsy's my source for that since I just CANNOT DIY...or DIM, actually;)

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  4. Oh wow, what lovely gifts you picked out! I always make a ton of handmade things for Christmas gifts every year, and this year even more so. Of course, I have Emily "helping" me with a lot of the workload.

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