last-minute gifts?

never heard of 'em.

Shouty emails in our inboxes telling us today is the last day to buy anything at all online would have us all believe that the window for Christmas gift finding is closed and that the only option is to spend obscene amounts on postage or else to wallow in our lack of preparedness and forethought.

To borrow a phrase: Bollocks.

Some of the very best gifts are procured or prepared in the final days leading up to a special occasion and I simply won’t be persuaded otherwise. Herewith, my short guide to finding and giving very good last-minute gifts:

Shop Local

It’s a turn of phrase that’s overused and mildly scolding, but it bears repeating and it’s the surest way to solve so-called last minute searches for the perfect gift.

It’s not for the faint of heart to bop in and out of stores in December, and it’s not lost on me that not everyone has the time or inclination to overheat in brick & mortar shops on the shortest days of the year, but those stores are still very much still open and ready to greet you, most of them straight up through Christmas Eve. (In case you missed it, this recent musing on IRL-only stores from Blackbird Spyplane is worth a read.)

Have you been into an indie bookshop in the week before Christmas? It’s chaotic and crowded, sure, but if you’re a romantic, and I am, it’s also kind of lovely. All of that ink on paper, all of those shoppers looking for the right thing to tickle the fancy or spark the imagination or otherwise signal their love to the folks they adore? The booksellers who know what book you’re looking for before you do? It’s magic if you let it be.

I’m a sucker for just about any small and twinkly shop after dark in December, and I’ll gladly bask in the knowledge that my patronage is keeping money in my local economy and preventing the need for these shops to repackage and mail what they only just unwrapped for their shelves. Best of all, shopping local means getting to stick it to the billionaire megalomaniacs, their idling trucks, and their insatiable thirst for commercial domination. Save your overnight shipping costs and darken the doorway of a local shop instead. Instant gratification never felt so good.

Specifics: MAKING THINGS, by yours truly and Rose Pearlman is only $35 and comes with a lifetime’s worth of creative projects and inspiration. THE SERVICEBERRY is the meditation on the gift economy we’d all do well to read this time of year. And AMERICAN BULK is maybe the best antidote/companion for a holiday that centers so firmly on consumerism.

Offer Experiences

Oh, you’ve heard this from me before? Well, maybe all of the all-caps emails have you forgetting that not everything has to come with rush shipping. What do your people love to do? Consider tickets to see a concert, to go on train ride, or to see a movie. Make reservations to go ice skating at a nearby rink, or to visit a museum exhibition, or to tour that historic house that no one ever wants to go to. Now is the very perfect moment to satisfy someone else’s yearnings. Extend an olive branch, put something on the calendar, commit to spending time together—or apart. If it makes sense, print out tickets, otherwise draw up a homemade version of your own and tuck them into a special envelope for gifting. (Special envelopes in question seen in the small folders above! There’s an imperfect tutorial for making them on RMTL and a more perfect one in Making Things.)

Specifics: Real Clothes, Real Live: 200 Years of What Women Wore, the Smith College Historic Clothing Collections at the New York Historical Society was clearly custom-curated with me in mind and I can’t wait to go see it.

Give Subscriptions

Fancy seeing this here! The gift of subscription to a favorite online or print publication is one of my very favorite last-minute gifts to give and to receive.

If you, like me, have children who view rushing to be the first one to open the mail as an Olympic sport, the gift of a magazine subscription means cut-throat competition joy delivered throughout the year.

Specifics: We love Illustoria, Anorak and Dot magazines. They’re smart, and beautiful, and we’ve kept our issues for years and still find new things in them. My kids are clamoring lately for a subscription to The Week Jr. and I’m especially into the idea of Anyway Magazine for tweens and teens. For adults, Mold Magazine and Mother Tongue would make v welcome recurring gifts as well. And, of course, giving the gift of a favorite online newsletter would be extremely lovely, easy, and personally make me weepy with gratitude.

From now through the end of the year, I’m offering 20% off yearly subscriptions to Tea Notes. (And if you sign up as a paid or free subscriber today, you’ll be entered to win a package with my new book plus a whole bunch of other goodies to get you making things. Tell all your friends and lovers!)

Fix Something

Today my very dear friend gave me an early Christmas present: a pair of my-sized shorts she found on a stoop. She washed them clean, sewed a bitty little patch over a hole in the bum, and wrapped them up for me to positively fawn over. So, believe me when I say that even the simplest fixes can bring great joy. Sew the ear back on the teddy bear, reattach the hang-tag on your spouse’s coat, polish someone’s boots. It won’t go unnoticed, but just in case you think it might, wrap up the fixed item and put it under the tree with the rest of the presents. Tie a bow on the chandelier you polished! Write a little zine about it! Draw a picture with large arrows! Gesticulate! Show and tell your love! You’ve got five whole nights to work on it, and that’s only if it’s Christmas you’re celebrating.

Specifics: Patch the hole in that sweater, rewire that old lamp, wash the chandelier crystals.

Make Something

For someone else, or just for yourself. I’ve said it a million times before, I’ve written an entire quite-large book about it, but making things, especially small things using materials we already have makes for the very best last-minute gifts. They don’t need to be extravagant and they certainly don’t need to be perfect. They can be three little paper boxes that you nest one inside of the next and call it a gift. A little bath mat knit with hemp string on chopsticks will be finished before you finish The Family Stone. A clay vessel shaped around a balloon will be dry before Christmas Eve. A cloth hair bow can be zipped through a sewing machine in two minutes flat or sewn by hand while sugar cookies bake. With any luck, time between now and the New Year will slow down a bit and give you a chance to be, to make, to enjoy the people around you.

That’s all folks. Thanks so much for being here, always.