Next week, my holiday break from school begins, the first chapter of my new book gets started, my daughter comes home from Columbia University for her semester break, and the western world is thrown into the pandemonium of last ditch Christmas shopping. I went shopping with my wife the other night and saw first hand what I try my best to avoid. I guess the worst of it, or at least the most offensive is the wrapping paper, which will go immediately to the land fill the week after Christmas. But I shouldn't be too hard on that. The wrapping of presents is at least a small opportunity for people to feel creatively engaged. There can even be skill in it. With the usual avenues of creative expression closed to most people, at least some sense of participation in the creation of beauty can be found in wrapping up the stuff.

But what if things were reversed? What if we were to put our creative and constructive energy into the making of the gift and then made our presentation of it unceremoniously wrapped in brown paper or newsprint? Would the gift be less expressive of our love?

One thing for sure, we would learn more from the making of objects than we would from wrapping things in the finest and most expensive ribbons and papers. We would share more of ourselves, our innermost aspirations for skill and creative expression. We would take greater creative risk in our lives, expressing more of ourselves to each other. We would lessen the toll of the holidays on our fragile environment. We would save money, and save ourselves from the frantic curse of holiday shopping. And the things we made and gave might live on past the arrival of the weekly garbage truck and serve as small monuments to growth, caring and love.

And its not too late. We still have 8 good making days until Christmas. I plan to make a quick and easy tool box for my daughter to take back to college, and if only I knew how to knit, I'd be making socks.