Thinking about having a handmade holiday...

It's official, today I wore a sweater to work and so, to me atleast, it is Fall.  Each year when it is cool enough that you need to start wearing the cool weather clothing my mind starts to look towards Thanksgiving and Christmas.  I know it is too early and I hate it that decorations are creeping in all over, but if you are going to make something it's time to start planning.

I like to plan ahead, if only in my mind right now, the foods and desserts that need buying and baking for Thanksgiving and then start to review and plan for the major season, Christmas.  I love the holidays and everything about them, baking, making candy, fixing the meals, decorating and the most important thing, gift giving.

I love gift giving, I even think it is my favorite part, but this year I have talked it over with my sisters and we have decided that all gifts exchanged should be handmade. 

I think a lot of love goes into a handmade gift and the holiday should be about love.  Besides that, everyone is working on a very tight budget and this is a great way to keep the costs down.  We decided our gifts should include only things that we make, including edible gifts.  Boy, does our group love the edible gifts!  My sister Carol is quite the dessert maker and we always count on Carol when it comes to cakes, cookies and candy.  I always throw into our family group meals a few cheesecakes and pumpkin pies.  Early this year I purchased, at a closeout, a dozen each of mini cheesecake and tart pans.  Not knowing at the time why I needed these twenty four little pans I think I may have come up with a treat for everyone.

Other than the goodies all the girls in my family are wanting jewelry from me.  Since I am a jewelry designer all the people on my gift list want me to make them something like earrings or bracelets.  It's okay though because I love making and giving jewelry to each of them.  I sure am glad that I am not a knitter because with the large size of my family I would have had to start knitting Christmas sweaters a couple of years ago.

What does your family do about gifts?  Are you into homemade and will you be gifting handcrafted presents to all?  Do you think the economy has impacted on the way you will give presents this year?  I would love to know from you what and how gifts are to be done this year.  I have finally decided on the perfect giveaway gift from me to my followers for the holidays.  I have a made a lovely piece of jewelry that will be given away the first week of November.  I will be posting photos and all information in a week and I am just sure it will be a hit.  The winner will be randomly drawn from all the comments and from my followers on here and on my other blog, that I sure hope you have all checked out, MySouthernTouch    Make sure you follow both of mine and leave comments so that you can get extra entries. Keep your eye out for the gift post because I know you'll love it!