Kris Kringle

Kris Kringle is a family tradition of ours.

We started doing it in the early 1990s when the girls were little. And it remains a family favorite for us.

Here's how it works:
Every year after Thanksgiving Dinner, when all the guests have gone home and the dishes have been washed, we draw names. Just the 4 of us. (A few others have slipped in and out over the years, including this year when Kyle, our future son-in-law, joined us. But for the most part it has been just us.) Then, we have from that very moment until Christmas Eve to hand-make a gift for our chosen person. By yourself. No help. Because it is a secret.

When our girls were little they would lock themselves in their bedroom or the office (with a "do not enter" note on the door) and proceed to annihilate entire jars of glitter, bottles of glue, reams of paper and boxes of markers. And scotch tape. We should have bought stock in scotch tape!!

Sometimes they would help themselves to my fabric. They'd cut big holes right out of the middle of it. And when they were finished, they would fold it up and slip it back onto the shelf so I wouldn't know it had been missing. Then, months (or even years later) we would pull that piece of fabric off the shelf to use it and find the giant gaping hole right in the center. And we would laugh and laugh and laugh.

Those are cherished memories to be sure.

The Kris Kringle is our Christmas Eve gift. We exchange them in the evening, after dinner when all of the guests have gone home and the dishes have been washed. And it is so hard to wait!! Because it is as wonderful and exciting to GIVE your handmade treasure as it is to get one.

The last two years in a row, my guy has drawn my name. I want to show you what he made for me. The first one you saw yesterday.

This is actually a bird feeder. But in the winter I just put water in it because the seed would just get wet and moldy. He made it out of an old light fixture I had bought at a yard sale and then never used. And he made it tall, about 5 feet tall, to keep it out of the reach of our cat who is a very mighty hunter. So smart.

This year, he stuck with the bird theme because he knows how much I love birds. He made me this:


Isn't it just completely wonderful!! I just cannot even imagine how he came up the idea of a HANDMADE hummingbird feeder!
He said he went to the thrift store 3 separate times before he found the perfect bottle (awwww) and then he used a scrap piece of copper left over from another job. He even hammered out the end to form a little blossom. It is so cute.

Now I am just waiting till spring so I can fill it up with red sugared water and invite my friend Linda over so we can enjoy the birds.