Christmas muse

For me, Christmas, or rather the lead up to Christmas, tends to bring with it an urge to make things. Every year, around this time, I have an overwhelming desire to create stuff. I always have a desire to create — it’s one of my core values — this is more Christmas specific.

I don’t know where it comes from. It’s not something my family traditionally did, although, as kids, we were encouraged to make presents for mum and dad rather than spend our pocket money. This urge is not out of a sense of thriftiness, it is something else. It’s like needing to knit something when the weather turns cold. Coming from the Northern hemisphere, where it’s cold, wet and miserable a lot of the time, you learn to knit at a young age.

This urge to create might be what some people call ‘the muse.’ I think of it as the creative energy that runs through all living things. For me, it seems to surge and swell toward the end of the year. It’s as if the year has been leading up to this point, building energy and intensity like a tsunami. A big burst of energy before the year is over, as though time itself is running out.

These ‘things’ I make I give to family and friends.

There tends to be a last minuteness about it all which is not helpful. I tend to come up with ideas around the same time the decorations go up in the shops. This gives me only weeks to learn how to make the gift, get it looking half-way decent and have it printed, published or made by hand in time for Christmas.

These ‘masterpieces,’ as my husband generously calls them, are inflicted on my nearest and dearest. I privately think they see them like the wobbly pottery the mum in the movie, ‘The Castle’ made.

‘You should open a shop love’

One year I made a recipe book. Our daughter was married in October that year and I thought I would give her some of the recipes she grew up with. Sounds simple enough right? Then I decided to include photos and stories of the people who had shared them with me. It felt like passing on a gift from all the generations of matriarchs who had come before.

The recipe book turned out so well I decided every woman in the family could have one. By now it was mid December. No problemo.

I set about rewriting the book, I’d written specifically for our daughter, to include everyone. Then I printed, collated and laminated about a dozen copies. It was madness. I tied the last ribbon late on Christmas Eve.

Some of the things I am compelled to make are simple and sometimes not. Not every year is a recipe book year — although I am up to the third edition.

For the last few years I made ‘simple’ Christmas decorations from felt. They start out simple, but then I include embroidery and designs I have no idea how to make. Like the BB8 one I made for my grandson or the unicorn baubles for my granddaughters. A whole felt nativity scene for our tree. Lots of embroidery I have to google and complicated patterns I need to invent.

Another year I decided to write picture books for Christmas, told from a child’s favourite toy’s perspective, explaining the meaning of Christmas.

Last year I decided I would make hand painted watercolour Christmas cards. How hard could it be? Not knowing how to paint with watercolour didn’t come into it.

This year I made Christmas Crackers. I have two more to go and they’re done. Will they work? I have no idea. I’ve never made them before. I keep imagining the grandchildren’s disappointment when the bang doesn’t happen as it should, or the lollies being melted before they get to eat them.

I keep asking why I do this to myself. Where does this compulsion come from? This desire to create, to make something to give others. It’s an overwhelming feeling and every year I find myself swept up into a frenzy of making. It would be so much easier if I knew what I was doing, if I didn’t keep making new things or if I could stick to knitting socks. I see a tutorial online and have to make it. Learning as I go, figuring it out and then sending them off hoping for the best.

I said I don’t know where it comes from – that’s not entirely true. It’s love. It compels me. Love lifts me like a wave heading for the shore. I can no more ignore it than the ocean can ignore the tide. Each stitch, every piece of felt, fabric, cardboard, glitter, even the wrapping paper covering it all, is drenched with love. Like a child waiting for the first snowflake, nose pressed to the glass, I look forward to seeing the smiles as they open these hand made pieces of my heart.