Santa's Helper

I feel like an elf, making toys for Santa. This afternoon was spent in the garage workshop, making some progress on my mother's new house address plaque and getting started on my youngest daughter's checkerboard. Everything is ready to prime and paint now, which I hope to do tomorrow.

By the time I had finished working on the projects, I had somehow managed to use nearly every power tool we have. I started out with the jigsaw, cutting the curved top of the address plaque. Either I still don't know how to use the jigsaw correctly, or I'm just bad at it. Regardless, it was not a pretty cut. But I was able to use the power sander to sand the jagged edge down to my nicely curved line. It actually looked pretty good by then!

After that step, I used my router to edge the plaque. It went better than I could've expected. I'd never routed anything other than a straight line before. But this edging went around all four sides of the plaque and around the curved top. Of course, when I stood back to admire it, I realized that the right side of the plaque was about one inch wider than the left side. So I had to trim it down. I pulled out the circular saw and trimmed the edge. (It was too narrow a piece to run on the table saw, and the board was too wide to cut on the miter saw.) Then I had to resand and rerout that side!

OK, so far, I'm up to four tools: jigsaw, sander, router, circular saw. Not to be outdone, I then pulled out the table saw to begin cutting the checkerboard pieces. I was only able to cut one piece there, then had to switch to the miter saw because the table saw fence was too short! By the time I was done, I had used six power tools. The only one I missed was the power drill/screwdriver.

Of course, that meant I had a lot of stuff to clean up and put away. It's a lot easier getting things out than putting them back, but my husband's a stickler for a neat garage. And once it's cleaned up, I like it too. It just takes forever!

If I had an exhaust hose system for my table saw, that would help cut down on sawdust. But I have a dustbag on the miter saw, and it seems to do very little. I still get sawdust everywhere. Same with the sander. (No wonder I need those dust masks!)

When I first suggested the idea that we all make at least one gift for each other this Christmas, I was a little worried that I would end up regretting it because of the time involved. After all, I'm still in progress on the window seat cushion and final hutch. And it's not like I don't have a million other things to do. But today I felt a strange sense of satisfaction as I worked on these gifts. Instead of fighting the store crowds or shopping impersonally online, I was crafting something with my own two hands. And I was thinking about that person while I worked. It was a gift of the heart, which is surely what Christmas is all about.

I can't say we're not buying other gifts this year. We are, both in person and online! But these simple handmade gifts, however few, are helping to focus our hearts and minds on the real meaning of the season-- and on each other. And that's worth doing, I say!