How to use up as much ribbon as possible...

...for the express purpose of not having to tie ribbons on your Christmas packages.

"Well, dern! Out of ribbon. Gotta use stick-on bows."

Another thing I have a bad attitude about is wrapping packages. Tying pretty, neat, evenly-looped, well-placed, creative, color-coordinated bows on packages is a pain. Whoever invented the stick-on bow is my personal hero/heroine.


And remember how, in days long past, the ribbon would come with nice little dividers between each color, so you didn't end up with this tangled mess? No more. A plain cardboard cylinder costs the manufacturer much less and they pass those savings right on over to us consum-- Ha ha! Sorry. Couldn't say that with a straight face.

Extricating a length from this birds' nest only makes using it to gift-wrap even more of a pain. This roll of multiple ribbon colors has been around for several years because I avoid using it.

Meanwhile, last year, Larry wanted to revive his childhood Christmas tradition of making chains out of construction paper. So we did, and we doubled it this year.

And I, who really really doesn't much like craft work, find it the most soothing, delightful activity. Last year that took me by surprise, a very lovely surprise.

It inspired me to keep going and make more construction paper chains to hang on the tree. I hesitated, though, because we use the old-style colored lights and they get hot.

And then the ribbon caught my eye. The ribbon isn't totally fireproof of course, but it is a LOT sturdier, less dry and brittle, more heat-resistant. We never plug in the tree lights unless we're around, and abso-LUTE-ly never leave them on when we aren't home, and I could feel OK about using this to make chains. Lots of our ornaments are string, yarn, wood, and other homemades.

So I put on some music and started chain-making.

This is my kind of craftwork. There is no pattern. There is no planning ahead. There is no measuring. I chop pieces randomly. I cut big loops, I cut small loops. I add them to the chain randomly. I rely on the law of averages to distribute the sizes and colors of the rings, and I don't care at all if I use a color twice in a row, and then don't use it again for quite awhile.

And doing it is wonderful. It's like meditating.