For those of us who get tired of the consumerism around holiday season, here’s a chance to rethink the way we gift. The joy of giving a loved one something you’ve created, instead of something store-bought, is incomparable. And what better time for the change than during the upcoming handicrafts week (December 8 to 14). So roll up your sleeves and get gifting.
Body scrub
The kitchen is not just a place to cook. Put on your Snape cloaks, mix up a bunch of ingredients, and get stirring a body scrub for soft, exfoliated, fragrant skin.
Ingredients:
5 tsp raw sugar, 2 drops zest of an orange, 4 tsp almond or olive oil
Method:
Toss the ingredients together.
Scoop it into a mason jar.
Tie with a rope, tag with hand-made paper.
(Recipe by Akchayya R, Chennai)
Rain sticks
Used widely in Central and Southern American music, rain sticks are hollow tubes partially filled with small pebbles, that when upended, recreate the sound of rain falling. They also find use in ASMR experiences to relax people, and can be used for meditation. Make your own using a cardboard cylinder (paper towel rolls joined together). Insert a spiral made of aluminium foil inside it. And then fill it up with tiny pebbles or grains of rice or beans. Cover both ends of the tube using paper and rubber bands.
Sleep basket
Make sure your loved one is well-rested. Fill the basket up with products that will help them sleep peacefully. Here are things you can include:
Lavender oil extracts : Studies show that lavender oil helps improve sleep by relieving stress and calming your mind.
Pillow or diffuser : They’ll need something to host that oil.
Reduce stimuli : Sleep masks, ear-plugs, anything to slow down the brain.
Night lamp : For someone who fears the dark, a night lamp that casts a soft warm glow. It’s handy even as a bedside lamp for someone who’s in a new home, to switch on when going to the washroom.
A playlist : Meditation music to light classical, rain sounds to white noise and whale songs — do a collection.
Tea powder : Chamomile tea and peppermint tea reduce anxiety and calm one down before bedtime.
Patchwork quilt
Pop over to the nearest tailor and pick up his bag of cloth scraps, or ask around for old, unused tees. Wash all, cut out into squares or any other shape, iron each bit out, then lay them out to create a rough pattern of how you want it sewn. Stitch by hand, or do the cheat thing and ask the tailor to do it for you.
Exercise calendar
After eating and drinking the year away, 2019, will surely be the year of exercise! If you are the ‘Monica’ of your Friends group — always making sure that people follow through with their plans — you could gift them an exercise calendar, listing out workouts for each week of the month. Take help from fitness apps or your local gym trainer.
Brain work
This one is for all your nerd friends, who appreciate crosswords and puzzles. You can gift someone a crossword you made yourself, where all the clues are inside jokes. If you find that tough, you can go online on crossword-making sites where all you have to do is key in the clues and the algorithm throws up the most suitable layout. Gift a laminated copy to a friend to keep them entertained for hours and get those mental cogs working.
You can also turn your favourite photograph of the two of you into a jigsaw puzzle: Print the photo and place it on a cardboard. Trace jigsaw puzzle pieces on both using a tracing paper. After cutting the cardboard and the photo separately in the traced-out shapes, paste the cardboard pieces and photo pieces together. Jumble all the final pieces and let your friend work out which picture it is.
Touch therapy
There’s value in a back, shoulder or foot rub, after a long day of running around. Not only is it physically soothing, over the years, studies have documented the power of touch in decoding emotional states. Get your partner coupons or IOUs that they can use over the month: the only twist? You will be the one giving the massage!
(With inputs from Rathna Mahesh)
