Craftsmas
Christmas Crafting Day
Get A Jump Start on Ambitious Christmas Crafting Projects
About Craftsmas
Craftsmas is the ultimate kickoff for the holiday crafting season, a celebration of DIY holiday decorations and gifts. For some, crafting is a way of life; for others, it’s an occasional adventure involving a lot of hot glue and dithering over ribbon colors. Today, we honor the crafters among us and the tradition of creating something heartfelt and unique. Dust off your craft supplies, stake your claim to the scissors no one else is allowed to use, and let your imagination run wild. It’s time to make Christmas magic (or at least needle-felted reindeer ornaments) with your own hands.
Ways to observe
(A) Low effort
Make a simple craft like paper snowflakes or string popcorn garlands while sipping hot cocoa.
(B) Recommended
Choose one Christmas craft to focus on, like making a set of handmade ornaments or designing holiday cards. Gather your materials, set up a cozy workspace, and play some holiday music to keep the mood festive as you work on your creations.
(C) High effort
Dive into a full-scale crafting project, such as knitting personalized stockings, building an elaborate gingerbread house, or creating a wreath from scratch. Organize a crafting party where friends and family can join in, complete with craft stations and plenty of snacks to fuel the creativity.
Inspiration
How is it that the ugliest ornaments on the tree are the ones treated like holy relics? That janky paper star that looks like a crushed rodent can bring your mother to tears. And it’s not just the warped crafts you made when you were six. I promise, you could glue popsicle sticks together today, add googly eyes, and it would have the same emotional effect. Christmas has a mysterious power to transfigure hot glue disasters into sacred objects. (Well, maybe in your mother’s eyes. The rest of us are genuinely embarrassed for you.) Craftsmas takes that spirit and dials it to eleven. We’re not talking about tasteful garlands or Pinterest-level wreaths. This is about channeling the six-year-old version of yourself who once made a Santa out of cotton balls and macaroni and believed, correctly, that it ruled. The goal isn’t perfection, but, rather, emotional shrapnel. You want someone to open a box of ornaments in ten years and say, “Oh God, remember when you created a needle-felted llama and named him ‘Soupy’?” (Again, only your mother will have this reaction. Expect a lot of eye-rolling from siblings.) Sure, craft fairs are lovely and full of grown-up-looking things made by crafty people. But Craftsmas is a glitter bomb for the soul. It’s about making stuff no one asked for but everyone will one day refuse to throw away. So grab your scissors, your box of scrap cloth, and your sense of reckless holiday joy. The tree’s not going to bedazzle itself.
Adornments
Watch
The Mistletoe Promise (2016)
Based on Richard Paul Evans’s novel, this Hallmark-style romance features a holiday fair subplot where handmade gifts and crafts play a crucial role in building trust between the two leads. If you like your craft content tied to emotional transformation, this one’s a cozy surprise.
Listen
Kentucky Homemade Christmas by Kenny Rogers
A lesser-known country ballad about Christmas in a poverty-stricken home, where love and creativity stand in for store-bought luxury.
Read
The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey by Susan Wojciechowski
A gorgeously illustrated children’s book (and gentle read for adults, too), telling the story of a grieving woodcarver who takes on a Nativity commission and rediscovers hope. A tribute to craftsmanship as redemption, and a pitch-perfect thematic fit for Craftsmas.
Craft: An American History by Glenn Adamson
A fascinating nonfiction tour through the history of making things by hand in the U.S., from colonial blacksmiths and quilters to modern “craftivists.” Adamson reveals artisans’ central role in shaping America’s identity, touching on everything from Betsy Ross’s flag-sewing to the AIDS Memorial Quilt.