sweet surrender.

closing out the year softly, with something in your hands.

This week is not going according to plan, which is also how I would describe what happened last week and the one before that one, too. One by one, sometimes with several days of apparent wellness in between and sometimes with overlapping moments of complaint, members of our family have fallen like tin soldiers, one minute alert and awake and the next splayed prone on the bed, hardly able to muster the energy to crawl under the covers. ‘Tis the season for succumbing to any one of the viral strains swirling in our midst and at the end of the year, and always, there’s nothing much to do but surrender. (Easier said than done.)

When, despite all signs pointing to a body needing more rest, feelings of stir-craziness start to creep in, I find particular comfort from getting a very small, mostly inconsequential, project into my hands. A tiny project can scratch the itch for productivity without actually requiring taxing outputs of brain or body power.

This weekend, when I came out of my own bed-ridden delirium, the first thing I did was cut birds into folded paper. While the healthy members of the family went ice skating—as the sun cast its last golden light over the rink in the park, and through our apartment windows—I took a few minutes to make something. It one hundred percent made me feel better.

Later that night, attempts were made to recreate the magic, but small hands and large scissors accidentally snipped through the edges of the folded paper, sending flurries of enigmatic paper shapes floating to the rug below. This did not deter the crafters. To one kid, the fallen shapes resembled headless angels. To another, the shapes echoed the angular faces of winter foxes. They brought out colored pencils, bent hooks out of golden wire, and with pierced holes through creased paper, they further festooned the Christmas tree.

From my own archives and other peoples’, here are a few very easy projects, perfect for these slow, sometimes sweet, days before the New Year.

Make a solstice shadow catcher.

Make gelt wrapper magic.

Fold a paper box.

Say hello to a potato head.

Hang a big old star in the window.

Turn a clementine peel into a tea light.

For once you feel better: Dabble in homemade Irish Cream. (Deb’s Recipe!)

Just in case that’s not enough making for you, don’t forget there’s a whole book full of ideas for…Making Things.

Also: Last-minute gifts, for in case the flu got you down, too.

Wishing each of you a healthy and peaceful finish to the year, and barring the possibility of that, a moment or two of quiet making. Thanks so much for being here, even, and especially, in times of necessary surrender.