A Good Idea

I first wrote about this good idea 10 years ago, but I'm am still using them and thought it might be time to revisit the topic.

Christmas was always a fairly simple, easygoing holiday before I had children. I worked in various hospitals from Florida to New York depending on where we were living, and because hospitals never close, I worked on Christmas for 15 years. By the time we were celebrating our second Christmas with Ryan and Justin came along in 1993, it was slowly dawning on me that Christmas was becoming more complex and complicated. I did love orchestrating it for my young sons, but there's no denying that it took quite a bit of time and some late nights. I could see what the problem was but didn't have any good solutions.

I was browsing in the fabric store after that Christmas and chanced upon some Christmas fabric for $1.00/yard. I couldn't resist this incredible bargain, so even though I didn't have specific plans for it, I bought a bunch. On the way home it came to me - I would sew gift bags. Wrapping presents is one of the holiday-related chores that I don't enjoy one bit, and by spending some low-stress sewing time throughout the year, wrapping gifts would be as simple as popping them in a homemade bag and tying the ribbons.

I don't remember how many I sewed that first year, but they were such a success that I've been sewing bags almost every year since 1994. I enjoy choosing fabric and along the way I branched out into birthday bags.

I've amassed quite a stash of bags, but that way I almost always have the right size for any gift. When my sons are both settled on their own, I envision divvying up the bag stash and gifting the boys with their own bag collections. This hasn't happened ... yet. 

I've still got some fabric for a few more bags, but I haven't sewn any recently. This might be something to put on my list for January. 

We even save and re-use tags. I couldn't find any tags for Jess and Nugget, so they got new ones. I don't have good ideas every day, but this is one of my better ones and has worked wonderfully for me!