Every year I have plans to make something for the holidays. Gifts I want to make for people, decorations I'd love to add to the house, and projects I see and immediately think, I could make that.
Sometime around October, all of this seems completely reasonable. There is plenty of time. Of course I'm going to make that garland, a few new decorations for the house, and maybe some handmade gifts while I'm at it.
Then somehow it's December, and I'm doing all the things that actually have to get done. The projects I was genuinely excited about have quietly moved to the "maybe next year" list. And honestly, that's kind of a shame because making things for the holidays is something I love to do.
I like handmade decorations. I like pulling something out of a box every year and remembering when I made it. I like giving someone something I actually made for them. What I don't particularly like is trying to squeeze all of that in when there are 47 other things that need my attention.
Which is pretty much how Pick Your Projects, Holiday Edition happened. I started thinking about all those projects we save and plan to make "when we have time," and wondered what would happen if we actually made the time for them before the holidays take over.
So this year, we're doing exactly that at Big Raven Farm. Pick Your Projects, Holiday Edition is November 12–15, which gives us a long weekend to make some of those projects while the holidays are still ahead of us.
Pick Your Projects, Only This Time We're Making Holiday Things
If you've been to one of our regular Pick Your Projects retreats, the Holiday Edition will feel familiar. The idea is still that you get to decide what you want to work on instead of everyone sitting down and making the exact same thing at the exact same time.
The difference is the project list.
For this retreat, I've put together 23 holiday projects to choose from, and we recommend choosing three projects to work on during the long weekend. There are decorations for your home, gifts you can make for someone else, quick projects, more involved projects, and probably a few you didn't know you needed until you saw them.
Three tends to be a good number. It gives you some variety without turning the weekend into a race to see how much you can finish. You might choose one bigger project and two quicker ones, or three that you know you're going to want to settle into for a while.
And I want to emphasize the words work on. You don't have to finish all three. This isn't school, there are no grades, and nobody is checking your work before you leave on Sunday.
Pick Your Projects has never been about how much you can get done. Some people work quickly and move through their choices. Other people get completely absorbed in one project and happily spend most of an afternoon on it. Both are perfectly good ways to spend a retreat.
The fun part is looking through those 23 choices and deciding which three get to come with you for the weekend. Here are three from this year's holiday list that give you a pretty good idea of how different those choices can be.
The Paper Bag Snowflake
Let's start with an easy one. The Paper Bag Snowflake takes about an hour, and you don't need to bring a thing. I'll have everything you need here at the Farm.
The Paper Bag Snowflake
This is one of those projects I love because the finished piece looks like it should have been much more difficult to make. It's big and dimensional and really pretty hanging in a window, over a table, or anywhere you have a spot that needs a little something for the holidays.
It's also a great project if you want to start the retreat by actually finishing something. There is something satisfying about sitting down with a pile of supplies and, an hour later, having a finished snowflake in front of you.
The only problem I see with this particular project is that I'm not entirely sure you're going to stop at one. One snowflake hanging in a window is pretty. Three hanging together might be even better. This is generally how my project lists get longer.
Difficulty Level: Easy
Time Commitment: About an hour
What to Bring: Nothing. I have everything you need.
The Book Lover's Beaded Garland
Then we have the Book Lover's Beaded Garland, which is for those of you who would rather settle into something for a while.
Book Lover’s Beaded Garland
This is a medium-difficulty project and will take more than a few hours, but you don't need to bring any supplies. Everything you need will be here waiting for you.
We get a lot of book people at Big Raven Farm, so this one feels particularly appropriate. I also like that it doesn't have to be packed away the minute the holidays are over. I can see it across a mantel, mixed into greenery, or tucked onto a bookshelf where it might just stay for a while.
This is also where being at a retreat instead of making something at home starts to matter. At home, I can sit down with every intention of spending the afternoon on a project. Then I get up to refill my coffee and notice something that needs to be done. While I'm doing that, I remember something else. Eventually I walk past the table and realize the project I was so excited about is still sitting exactly where I left it two hours ago.
At the Farm, you can sit down with your garland and just keep working on your garland. Someone else is taking care of lunch. You don't need to figure out dinner. Nobody is waiting for you to clear the supplies off the table so they can use it for something else.
You can spend a few hours making one thing, which really shouldn't feel as luxurious as it does.
Difficulty Level: Medium
Time Commitment: More than a few hours
What to Bring: Nothing. I have everything you need.
The Felt Ornament Gift Set
Then there's the Felt Ornament Gift Set, and I wanted to include this one because not everything you make during the weekend has to come home and go into your own holiday decorations. Sometimes it's really nice to make something specifically to give away.
For this project, you'll make a set of six felt ornaments. Make all six and you have a handmade gift ready to give, or split them up and add one to a few different gifts. Or, of course, you can decide somewhere along the way that you like them too much and keep them. I'm not going to make you give them away.
The Felt Ornament Gift Set
The colors are random, which I actually think is part of the fun. Instead of planning exactly what every ornament will look like before you begin, you'll see what you have and work from there. And because you're making six, you'll have plenty of room to make each one a little different.
This one falls in the easy-to-medium skill range. Making the complete set of six will take more than a few hours, so it's another good project to settle into during the weekend. You don't need to bring any supplies. I'll have everything you need waiting for you.
Difficulty Level: Easy to Medium
Time Commitment: More than a few hours for all six
What to Bring: Nothing. I have everything you need. Colors are random.
Before the Holidays Get Loud
There is one thing I don't want to do with this retreat, and that's turn it into another way to "get ahead" for the holidays. We're already really good at doing that to ourselves.
There is always something we should be doing earlier, organizing better, planning further ahead or crossing off a list. I don't want you sitting at the Farm making ornaments because you've decided you need to produce six handmade gifts before Sunday. I want you to make them because you saw them and thought, I want to make those.
The holidays can get busy fast. There are people to see, places to go, meals to make, gifts to buy and wrap, houses to clean, and traditions we want to keep doing even when we're not entirely sure where they're going to fit.
Before all of that happens, there's this little window when the holidays still feel like they're coming instead of already being on top of us. That's where I want this retreat to live. A few days where you get to enjoy the making part without trying to squeeze it between everything else.
What a Few Days at the Farm Actually Looks Like
If you've never been to Big Raven Farm, you might be wondering whether this is basically a three-day craft class. It isn't.
I've written before about what a retreat is like at Big Raven Farm, because I realized we sometimes assume people know what happens here once they arrive.
You stay here. We feed you. Your workspace is here. The instructions and most of your supplies are here. You're not driving back and forth to a hotel or trying to figure out where you're going to eat between projects.
It means you can work for a while and then stop. Go outside. Get another cup of coffee. Sit and talk. Go back to your project. Eat dinner. And if you want to wander back over afterward because you're almost finished and it's bothering you to leave it until morning, you can do that too.
There is room during the weekend, and I think that's something most of us don't get very often.
And Yes, You Can Come By Yourself
You do not need to find somebody to come with you. A lot of our guests come to Big Raven Farm alone, and I've written an entire blog about why so many people come to retreats without knowing anyone because I know walking into a place by yourself can feel intimidating.
The nice thing about a creative retreat is that nobody has to work very hard to figure out what to talk about. You're sitting around a table making things. You ask the person next to you what they're working on. They ask what you're making. Someone needs help. Someone else has an opinion. Then everybody goes to dinner together.
By the next morning, you're coming back to the same table with your coffee and picking up wherever you left off. It happens pretty naturally, and sometimes the people who were most worried about coming alone are the ones exchanging phone numbers before they leave.
The Things We Keep
I think one reason I wanted to do a holiday version of Pick Your Projects is that handmade holiday pieces have a funny way of sticking around.
I have decorations I pull out year after year. Some are beautiful. Some are a little wonky. Some probably don't mean anything at all to anybody except me. But I remember them. I remember where they came from or who made them. Sometimes I remember exactly where I was when I made one.
They become part of the holidays because they've been there for so many of them.
Of course, not everything we make needs to become a family heirloom. That seems like an awful lot of pressure to put on a Paper Bag Snowflake. Sometimes you should get to make something simply because making it sounds fun.
And if you end up pulling it out of a box ten years from now and remembering the weekend you spent at Big Raven Farm making things with a table full of people you hadn't met before you arrived, even better.
Come Make Something With Us
Pick Your Projects, Holiday Edition is November 12–15 at Big Raven Farm in Spring Grove, Minnesota. We've put together 23 holiday projects, and we recommend choosing three to work on during your long weekend at the Farm. Pick the three you're most excited about, and we'll give you the space and time to settle in and make them.
There will be food. There will be coffee. There will undoubtedly be projects that take longer than somebody thought they would. There will probably be someone still working on something after dinner because they are almost done and cannot possibly stop now.
In other words, it should feel a lot like Big Raven Farm.
If you've been telling yourself every year that this is the year you're actually going to make some of those projects you've been saving, maybe don't wait until December this time.
Come make them with us.
See all 23 projects and reserve your spot for Pick Your Projects, Holiday Edition