Finish, Don’t Finish, or….Another Option?
You’re knitting or crocheting a special gift for a special person in your life…and it’s a mere days (or hours) before Christmas, and you’re not even close to finishing. What to do? Friends, do not fret! You have options.
Option 1– Suck it Up and Finish the Thing. This is by far the most unpleasant option for holiday knitters, but it may be what you need to do. Just how close are you to finishing? If you can conceivably finish this sweater, hat, or pair of socks, you may feel a sense of accomplishment by simply staying up late, putting needles to work, and finish the thing. Compensate by promising yourself your next project will be slow, relaxing, and enjoyable.
Option 2 – Don’t Finish; They’ll Understand. This option relies on the fact that the special recipient of your special gift understands that you’re making this handcrafted gift out of love AND that it takes time. You’re not just going to the store and throwing the first thing you see into the shopping cart. You’re putting TIME – your precious and irreplaceable time – into this gift. Your person will value that more than anything. As a practical matter, you can wrap up your unfinished gift, a sketch or copy of the pattern, or simply a piece of yarn and a nice note explaining that the gift is still a work in progress. It’s okay. Really.
Option 3 – It’s Christmastide!!! You have 12 more days to finish!!! Remember that song, “The Twelve Days of Christmas”? Friend, it’s a thing. The ancient Christian season of Christmastide lasts for twelve days, ending January 5. Most churches consider the celebration of Epiphany, January 6, as the official end to the Christmas season. And who doesn’t enjoy an unexpected Epiphany gift! If the Three Wise Men can present their gifts on January 6, so can you!!! (They in fact, it’s thought, didn’t actually show up until Jesus was a toddler, so that’s gives you…years!…to finish that gift, if you go this route.)
Whatever you decide, be kind to yourself this Christmas Knitting Season, my friends. We knit to relax, we knit to show our love to others, we often knit to keep ourselves sane. It’s all okay. Your loved ones will surely enjoy and be touched to the core that you have made something just for them. And showing your love from your heart is what Christmas is all about.
Christmastide Blessings, Cindy
Cynthia Coe is the author of The Prayer Shawl Chronicles, interrelated short stories woven around those who make and receive handmade, prayerfully crafted gifts of prayer shawls. Click this link to order or for more information.
Cynthia Coe is the author of The Prayer Shawl Chronicles, a collection of interrelated short stories about knitters and those they meet through knitting and sharing prayer shawls.
Be sure to check out my newly published A Prayer Shawl Handbook: Inspiration and Resources for Your Prayer Shawl Ministry, now available in paperback and e-book editions and included in Kindle Unlimited. Thanks for all the wonderful “thumbs up” of support for this new book!!!
Sycamore Cove Knitting 