This holiday season I decided to take more of a traditional approach when it came to gift-giving: I handmade all of my gifts for my family and friends. Although it was more work than pressing “buy now” on a website, I really enjoyed this endeavor. The main reason I started the project was to limit my consumption. In a previous article, Less is More: How to Stop Over Consumption, I go into depth about overconsumption and how to prevent it.
However, the short of it is, in the current age, where we can purchase things with the click of a button, it’s easy to fall victim to trends, and end up buying something only to wear it for a month and never again. This consumption takes a large toll on the planet as the average American throws away 81.5 pounds of clothing annually, multiply that by the 334.9 million people in America and get 27,294,350,000 pounds of clothes thrown away each year. So to do my part as a citizen of this planet, I decided to handmake my gifts this year to lessen the environmental costs of the manufacturing, shipping, and packaging of pre-made gifts. If you would like to learn more about Christmas consumption, I suggest you check out Has Consumerism Currupted the Holidays by my friend and fellow writer Sara Kershow.
While my main goal may have been sustainability, I found several more benefits to handmaking gifts through this process. One thing is the customizability of handmade gifts which allows you to give people something specifically made for them and their needs. This is helpful when you’re gifting to someone who already “has everything.” My grandpa, for example, is hard to shop for because whenever he wants something he just buys it. However, he has been begging my grandma, who knits, to make him a golf club cover for years and she refuses to (I genuinely don’t know why). So this year I decided to make him a golf club cover of his own. It’s extra special because it’s made by his favorite grandchild.
This brings me to another reason why handmade gifts are superior: they really show you care. When someone asks for a hoodie for Christmas and then they get that exact hoodie on Christmas morning, where is the heartfelt gesture of giving a gift? Where is the surprise? Where is the magic of gift-giving? When you handmake a gift, the amount of time and labor that goes into it shows the recipient that you really care about them. Then every time they put on that knitted sweater or wear that crocheted hat they’ll think of you and the fact that you appreciate them enough to give them a gift, which is the greatest gift of all.
I was so excited to give people gifts and see their reactions when opening them that I found myself more excited to give gifts rather than receive them. I couldn’t even think of much that I wanted because I was too excited about giving, which is an amazing feeling. So join me in continuing this new tradition of mine into 2025 for birthdays and many holiday seasons to come, and I recommend you do the same. Make the most of the holidays and bring back handmade gifts!