First published in the Ipswich Local News December 23, 2024
I should have said no, but I wanted to be a person who said yes. A person who was… crafty. (Regular readers can wipe up any beverage they may have just spit out.)
I was invited to an ornament party where we’d, “create handmade ornaments for each attendee.” The problem was I had no idea what a handmade ornament might be.
My friend, the co-host, sent me a picture of an ornament from a previous party. “I made this cute frame and then I used my cricket to cut letters out for the names.”
“Like the jumping insect?”
She laughed like I’d made a joke.
I wasn’t joking.
I decided to figure out what her cryptic statement had meant. Turns out, it’s actually a ‘c-r-i-c-u-t’ and does something crafty with cutouts. Good thing I didn’t show up with a bag of feeder crickets from Petco. Regardless, I said yes, and after hours scrolling through Pinterest, I settled on a classic sled ornament that was, “designed to be made with your kids!”
A craft a five year old could make was probably something I could handle.
Until I realized that my sled had seven popsicle sticks of varying sizes, each needing to be hand painted, then glued, and finally embellished. That’s 98 popsicle sticks. Most were red, but the sleigh runners were to be, ‘stained with wood stain.’ Really? Someone let a kid use wood stain? I went with a festive acrylic brown paint and spared us the fumes and the potential staining mishap.
Then the glueing ensued. Wood glue in order to glue the sled together (and the sled to the table and my fingers to the sled and the glue to the paint brush I accidentally left nearby).
Then glue dots to attach little fake bits of greenery to the sled. But the glue dots proved impossible. I took to social media and was told to ditch the dots and use a hot glue gun, which due to having elementary school-aged children for a decade of my parenting years, we owned.
Glue guns are to a house what cotton candy is to a child. Sure they work – things get glued – but is it worth it? Wisps and strands of glue floated through my dining room like so many spider webs, glistening as they floated in search of something to stick to other than the embellishment on my sleds. Like kids with cotton candy in their hair, there comes a point when it’s just not worth it.
Plus my embellishments, in the form of faux greenery, were covered in some sort of leaping glitter. Whenever I touched one, glitter shot onto me. Nary a glue gun involved, and yet it had a permanence that suggested a timeless sparkle awaited me.
Finally I was done. Fourteen ornamental sleds that any five year old could make nearly took this 50 year old down for the Christmas count. The party night came, and we each revealed our ornaments, some with explanatory backstories.
“When I crocheted this festive reindeer I used 94 different yarns and the Queen of England’s personal pattern that I found when antiquing in a secret British location during Wold War II which I accessed by time traveling.”
Or something like that. I couldn’t really keep up.
When my turn came, I explained that I painted one million popsicles sticks, destroying much of my dining room table, and hot glued my dogs to Santa’s sled — I hoped they were OK up there flying through space delivering toys they weren’t allowed to eat.
Basically, I tried my best.
I think I’ll be invited back, if only because every party needs someone to mutter incredulous, color commentary in the corner.
Of course what our family celebrates at Christmas is that our efforts (plus or minus a hot glue gun) are not what gives us hope and joy. Christmas is when we celebrate the birth of a baby who would grow up and give us the gift of true joy and peace based on His efforts, His love and His life.
And that is a gift even a five year old, but especially a 50 year old, can be thankful for.