Holiday Mending

The holidays are coming and everyone in our family is looking forward to the usual Christmas cheer. My son is old enough be excited about presents (though he’s already a bit of a realist about Santa, I’m afraid), my husband likes reconnecting with old friends in his hometown, and we all look forward to spending time with Grandmas and Grandpas. The unusual thing I look forward to? Downtime to catch up on my mending!

I’m not sure about you, but I have a mending pile that slowly grows in my basement next to my sewing stuff. Each piece needs just a few little repairs; maybe a button has come off or some stitching coming loose. There will be enough wrong with it that I don’t want to wear it – but not enough to get rid of it. Each repair wouldn’t take me that long to do but I never seem to get around to it. Or at least that used to be the case.

I finally found my magic mending time after a few Christmases at my in-laws where it felt like I mostly sat around twiddling my thumbs. I’m not used to that much downtime, and it seemed like the perfect chance to get some quiet indoor work done. It felt like a “eureka” moment when I figured out how to make good use of the time without detracting from the holiday spirit.

One Christmas, I packed a bag with all the various mending projects I had and a box full of thread and needles. I sat and visited with relatives while also fixing my family’s stuff. I could sit and be social, and also give myself the best Christmas present ever: to come home after the holidays and have all those things ready to wear again!

It worked so well, that I make a ritual of it every year now. Part of packing for Christmas with family means packing my mending to take along. Sometimes relatives will see me doing it and ask if I can fix something of theirs too. It also gets them thinking about fixing their own clothes, instead of getting rid of them when there’s only one little thing wrong.

If I desperately need something fixed right away, I usually make time to do it. But now that I have a regular time of year to catch up mending, I feel a lot better when I add something to the pile. I know when I will have time to get to it now. What about you?