海角大神

Christmas can be tougher on the grown-ups. That childhood joy we still long for gets submerged under the burden of obligation and the demands of marketers. Things can get frantic, and expensive, too. Too often, we end up tired and broke.

Not me! I make my gifts. I have fun.聽

It鈥檚 possible that no one in my family had 鈥渟culpture of pterodactyls hanging batlike from the ceiling鈥� on their Christmas wish list. Or even 鈥�5-foot-long fabric salamander.鈥� I don鈥檛 care. I operate on the sunny assumption that my family members don鈥檛 know what they want until they unwrap it.

It can get complicated. For every hand-painted sweatshirt of a cicada wearing ear protection that takes 10 hours to complete, there might be a quilt with 80 hours in it. I鈥檓 usually just polishing up the last gift on Christmas Eve after a hectic three months of creativity, but know this: I am joyful and triumphant. You could call it the Twelve Weeks of Christmas, but those lords a-leaping have nothing on my stuff.

Because my stuff is not normal. Even the silk kimono I painted commemorated the day a swan grabbed my sister and hauled her into a lake. My husband, Dave, still wears the shirt with his workplace nickname 鈥� The Spam King 鈥� printed in the iconic Spam lettering, nestled in the yellow goo from the can. These things don鈥檛 always come out the way I envision them. But, as they say, it鈥檚 the thought that counts.聽

Although the postage adds up, too.

It took me a few years to recognize that even though I thought an odd-sized painting would be novel 鈥� say, something tall and narrow 鈥� there was something to be said for sticking with standard-sized paintings and sliding them into frames from the store. Paintings that could then be mailed in a snap without tripping over the postal regulations.

And although each gift was created with the individual recipient lovingly in mind, none of them was especially practical.

So one year I decided to give everyone toilet plungers. Toilet plungers are practical. And they did have the advantage of fitting into more or less standard packaging. That is, they did until I topped them with papier-m芒ch茅
bird heads, and decided to throw in smaller sink plungers with matching baby birds on them. I was pleased with the results and anticipated they would go over well. But by the time they were finished, I needed to whack up appliance-sized boxes to send them in. And cross my fingers while the postal clerk frowned and brought out her tape measure.

Still, I thought I was on solid ground the year I realized what my sister Margaret really needed was a bird hat. She loved to sit on her back deck in Maine, overlooking 5 wooded acres, and watch the birds. But if she had a hat with birdseed on it, they could land on her head! They could whiz adorably by her ears! They could spray seed chaff all over her sweater! Once that idea flitted into my mind, it was all over but the making of it.聽

It would have to be sturdy. I bought a hard hat shaped like a Stetson for the base. I attached a bowl for sunflower seeds on the top, and 鈥� Why not? 鈥� a thistle sock feeder rising up to the crown. It was quite practical, from my point of view, but not attractive. So it grew. A long brim sailed out both fore and aft until it looked like God鈥檚 own sou鈥檞ester and was covered in individually stitched, quilted fabric leaves in autumn colors. A few graceful twigs were anchored in the assemblage for perching convenience. I had to admit, it turned out great.

Yes, it weighed 12 pounds and had to be shipped in a box the size of an ottoman, but it was sure to be a hit.

And it was. I hadn鈥檛 quite thought it all the way through, though. Margaret could only aspire to being 4-foot-8 on her best day, and that hat put her entire person in complete eclipse. A mushroom of the same proportions would tip over in an instant. Worse, her various challenges had already made it hard for her to hold herself upright in a chair. Without a gigantic bird hat on. It was not to be. There would be, for her, no thrilling thunk of a landing jay, no chickadee wings fanning her ears.

So she filled it with seed, perched it on the deck railing, sat a few feet away, and watched the birds land.

And there, in that space between her chair and the bird hat, that鈥檚 where The Thought lived: a splendid ether, where love and gratitude resonated. Shimmered. Rang like bells.

Because they鈥檙e right: It really is the thought that counts, one powerful enough to pull sisters together, even when they鈥檙e a continent apart.

I haven鈥檛 given any thought to next year鈥檚 gifts. Except I think they will fit in a flat-rate box.