HO-memade HO-liday. HUM-bug.

Okay. Here's how this works. I show you a picture of the hand-made gift I created for each of my children, and then you say, "Wow! That's beautiful! It's amazing! You made that? Your kids will love it! That will be a treasure they keep forever, and they will feel your love every time they look at it! Natalie, how wonderful of you to try doing a homemade Christmas this year, instead of just giving the kids more toys to treat like garbage in the basement."

It doesn't have to be those exact words, but you get the idea. Just say something that expresses the awe and wonder you would feel if your mother spent many back-breaking, yawning, late-night hours working secretly on a special gift just for you.

Here it comes. This is the one made for Nathan. His favorite color is blue.

That was your cue. "Wow! It's amazing, it's beautiful...etc."

And next we have the Daniel quilt. He loves holidays and seasons, so the blocks represent those.

CHORUS

And, lastly, the crown jewel of my efforts, Stephanie's pink quilt, which I made in less than 3 days. And I'm not a quilter, people. It's really sewn together with love (and I hope it holds up, HA!).

I felt a need to show the back of this one also because the fabric is just beautiful. SO beautiful, in fact, that THAT is really what makes the quilt and the real reason I could do it in 3 days--no matter what pattern I chose, it would have been lovely because of this unique fabric.

So, way back in July, I told the kids (or warned the kids) that they would not be getting a lot of toys for Christmas because we were going to do more homemade things instead. Who needs MORE toys? We have 3 bedrooms and a basement full of them. And they're not interested in parting with any of them. So I said they would receive homemade items and things they need, and a FEW things that were just for fun. Well, I forgot about grandparents and friends giving them things, so they still got plenty of gifts to play with. But my hope was that they would truly be wow-ed by these quilts and immediately begin loving them forever.

Now I'm not picking on my kids. They're great kids and they were thankful for all their gifts. They DO seem to like them very much, but these quilts are already being used for tug-of-war, for fort-building, for putting over the head and walking around like a ghost, etc. In short, they are just another blanket. HO-HO-HUM. But maybe, when they go off to college, this will be the one thing they insist on taking with them, right?  Maybe.