Homemade treats

By Jamie Doggart

dogg0006@algonquincollege.com

I start to think about Christmas early on in the season, about the beginning of November if not earlier. While I do love Christmas, I’m not one to rush headlong into the season before it’s ready to start. The reason I get carols stuck in my head before the stores are playing them is because I knit almost all of my presents.

With the uncertain economy and people starting to contemplate storing their money under their mattress, creating presents is becoming an attractive alternative to buying store-bought goods. It also gives people a chance to break away from the consumer driven aspect of society.

Making presents is time consuming and appreciated by only certain gift receivers. If they’re not awed and glowing by the amount of love and time you spent putting their gift together then maybe store-bought is the way to go. But for the rest, your pain-staking efforts will be greatly appreciated.

I created my first home-made present - not including the times when I had no money and no alternatives – a few years ago when I first taught myself to knit. I knew only how to knit scarves so I picked out a nice skein of wool and hoped that would compensate for my lack of talent.

I chose to give the scarf to my dad because he’s a scarf kind of guy - never goes out in the winter without one. I was halfway through my ball of wool before I realized I had a dilemma. I didn’t have enough wool and couldn’t buy more. I finished the scarf anyways and gave it to him hoping that somehow it would stretch and would work out okay.

My dad loves his scarf and wears it all the time. The three winters the scarf has seen did cause it to stretch out like I’d hoped but because of that it’s much thinner now. The scarf is now fondly referred to as my dad’s tie. It’s become almost a tradition for me to make him a new scarf every Christmas but he keeps coming back to the first one.