Christmas can be a fairly stressful time when it comes to selecting gifts for such a wide range of people. It’s expensive, and at the same time the fact that you’re buying so many can make the whole process seem somewhat impersonal. Making your own gifts however can solve both these problems, showing that time and thought went into each person while not spending inordinate amounts of cash on people who you don’t know all that well. Below are some ideas that are fun, festive and take just the right amount of effort and cost to make sure everyone who receives on is happy.

Here are some homemade Christmas gift ideas:

Potpourri – Arranging potpourri can make a nice festive smell and something attractive to look at. To make your own find some fruits, plants and herbs from your garden and dry them out over night. Now buy yourself some glass bowls to place them in a crush them up. Presentation is key here so add flourishes such as live flowers or bits of bark and you’ve got yourself a great present that will last for ages.

Jam – Making your own jam can be both fun and delicious and is a quick way to make lots of gifts at once. Choose your flavour (raspberry, strawberry, blueberry) and find yourself lots of the necessary fruit (either grown in your garden, picked or bought). Now crush it all in a pot and add sugar to bring out the juice and a tiny bit of water. Depending on how thin you want it you can whisk or blend the fruit and can then add any other elements to alter the flavour such as honey, sweetener, chutney, wine etc. Add these seasonings to taste and then add food colouring if you want to make it more appetising. Buy some jars to place them in and tie a ribbon around them for extra marks on presentation. You can even print out your own labels for the jars!

Christmas Decorations – Making your own Christmas decorations makes an excellent festive gift that has the additional added benefit of taking up no space for eleven months of the year (unless you’re Michelangelo that’s probably for the best). There are a variety of ways you can make decorations – you can make soft Santas buy sewing and stuffing/and or adding pom poms and pipe cleaners, you can make decorations for the Christmas tree with various sequins and polystyrene (or even edible ones from ginger bread) or you can paint something ceramic or carve something from wood. Though it might seem pointless to give them these gifts on Christmas when it’s literally just too late, any other time of year would be far weirder and they can still be displayed until the end of the month.

Cards – Homemade cards are fun creative gifts that you can send out to all the people who didn’t quite make the presents list. This way you’ve still put some time and effort in so they’ll know you thought of them, but at the same time you haven’t spent any money on a gift (they’re particularly good for people who may or may not send you a gift). There are various ways you can make them depending on your abilities – you can use stitching patterns, cartoon drawings, collages, glitter and small 3d objects or calligraphy – the options are endless. For the less artistic among you you can even make projects on the computer and get them printed out and laminated.

Books – Making your own books takes a significant amount of time but is particularly cheap. If you have younger relatives or friends you can make children’s books about cartoon characters and bind them together using a variety of methods (you’ll also win brownie points with the parents for this one). These can then even star the children you’re writing about. For adults you can make various other book projects – photo books, recipe books etc etc, and using websites such as Lulu. com you can now have them professionally published at no cost to you.

Plant Arrangements – Making arrangements of plants or flowers makes a great gift for women or friends with green fingers. This is a creative gift that also costs a little money (so isn’t completely cheap on your half) but also shows effort and thought – particularly if you buy a nice pot and use flowers you know the recipient will appreciate.

Wooden Spoon – Despite their innate lameness, wooden spoons still remain a popular homemade gift. To make one, buy an ordinary wooden spoon then use some colourful pens and glue to decorate it with the names of those you’re giving it too. Despite my loathing of this as a gift, you can probably just about get away with it at Christmas if you make it fairly festive and so a Christmas decoration.

Games – Making your own board games or quizzes can be as large or small an undertaking as you want it to be, but either way will provide the family with something fun to do on the day after they’ve opened their presents. If you want to go all out you can make a board game with rules and cards, or if you want something a bit quicker you can just make a ‘pub quiz’ type game with some questions you know the recipients will appreciate.

Knitting – If you knit or sew you can make clothes for your friends. While they may normally be quite trendy, in the winter we all need scarves and jumpers and something home knitted has a nice sentimental and festive feel to it. Again it’s also something that takes a fair bit of time and effort which will be appreciated by the recipients (unless they’re just ingrates…).

Puddings – Making puddings for Christmas is a great way to chip into the festive feel by adding to the festive puddings and deserts we all enjoy on Christmas and Christmas Eve. Anything from a sponge cake, to ginger bread men, to treacle pudding. And if you’re there you’ll probably get to eat it too…

Mack LeMouse

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