On the third day of Christmas . . . I offer this small tale:

When Dixie and I were first married, we decided that for our first Christmas together we would make something for everyone. For our mothers, we planned to make lap quilts, and very nice lap quilts they turned out to be. They we’re a major project, but not more than we could handle. However, the Christmas bears were another matter.

For everyone else that we thought would appreciate one, we decided on this pattern in a craft book for teddy bears. They LOOKED simple. We planned on eleven bears (we’ve got a lot more nieces and nephews now and would have to do twenty or so if we planned the same project today). How hard could it be? We decided to do a number of the bears at half-size . . . are any of you experienced sewing folk? I think we gave ourselves about 2 months. Can you see where this is leading?

I’m sure most couples have stories to tell about their first Christmas together. Ours is one of hour after hour in front of a sewing machine, while going to school and working jobs. Of little bears with their heads and arms sewn on inside-out, or with one leg backward . . . tiny little limbs that the sewing foot would barely fit into.

The good news is that we finished them, and I learned two important clues to having a sane Christmas from the experience:

• If you decide to make gifts for people, do something you already know how to do. A big part of our mistake was leaping into something we had no idea how to do and it was much more labor intensive than we ever could have imagined.
• Keep it simple and personal. Mass producing stuffed animals is neither personal nor practical.

Since then, we’ve tried to focus on things like CD or Video recordings of family events, and my brothers have done some really interesting family history projects that they’ve shared with us all at Christmas time. What’s someone going to remember longer?