James Finn Garner
These felt banners used to hang over our mantelpiece when I was young. Beneath them was a very simple creche of rough wood, with five placid Nativity figures. I took these banners when my mom was downsizing because they remind me of the crafts we used to work on around the house.
My mom didn’t brim with self-confidence. Opinions yes, but not confidence. Shamed because of her dyslexia in school. Shamed for her singing when she was a student teacher (the supervising teacher literally pulled her aside and advised her strongly never to sing in front of a class). She could never be talked into doing anything for the sheer fun of it: “Why would you do something that you’re not good at?” At wit’s end in a house full of men and boys, she found great solace in things like knitting, needlepoint and crafts.
In the basement were piles of Woman’s Day and Better Homes & Gardens, brimming with ideas for making your holidays festive. There were also Reader’s Digests and National Geographics. We took these and folded down each page corner and fanned the issue out in a cylinder shape. Add a Styrofoam ball for a head, glue on arms or wings, spray on gold paint, and voila! A chorus of handcrafted heavenly angels.
When we were a little older, Mom bought us kits to make ornaments out of Styrofoam shapes covered in shiny velvet. She would separate the elements into muffin tins: the straight pins, the bangles, the oblong pearls, the plastic gems, the rickrack. Following the instructions, my brothers and I would assemble gaudy ornaments fit for Queen Victoria. (Subtlety and taste often fly out the window at Christmas.) I still have these, too, and they are dear to me.
I hear people complain sometimes when their young children bring home craft projects that are less than museum quality, and I simply do not understand. So much mass-produced Christmas junk ends up circulating in our house at the end of the year – thin ceramic Santa mugs, cookie tins, plastic plates, pencils, noisemakers – that throwing it out makes me feel like an eco-criminal.
Our kids made plenty of holiday craft projects when they were young, and we’ve tried to keep most of them. We have a tree dedicated solely to those ornaments, with cotton balls, toilet paper rolls, pipe cleaners, Polaroids and construction paper. They’re faded and barely holding together, and they are far from perfect.
But Christmas isn’t about perfection. It’s about imperfection. Our own.