If Christmas is the season of giving, it stands to reason that Christmas is all about gifts! Of course, the problem with gifts is that just about any old person can buy a really super gift. Except the poor, of course. While the rest of us are charging pashmina shawls and mink teddy bears and boxes of Royal Riviera pears with our gold cards, the poor are forced by their poverty to craft homemade presents for the people on their lists. There's nothing wrong with a homemade gift, especially if it's not the only gift you receive. A baked salt dough plaque imprinted with a child's tiny hand can be a downright "you shouldn't have" when balanced atop a pile of cds and six or seven items from the Sharper Image catalogue.
There's no better way to add some meaning to your holiday celebration than by taking an hour or two to pretend you're poor. It's easy! You don't have to choke down the pressed turkey roll and lukewarm baked beans that various do-gooding organizations provide for the less fortunate at this time of year. The dear souls mean well, but those creased cardboard Santas and reindeer are depressing and frankly, how close is too close when you're dealing with the lice-infested hungry? You don't have to kneel in a poorly heated church, thanking some chipped plaster Baby Jesus for your health as if that's all you have. To walk in the shoes of the poor this Christmas, you need only try your hand at some of the Christmas Craft Suggestions listed below. If you do it the way the poor do, scrounging in dumpsters and your neighbor's recycling bins for your materials, it won't cost more than a few pennies. Keep in mind that you'll want to buy a really super second gift for the designated recipient of your handiwork. It is Christmas, after all.
Do-It-Yourself Outsider Art
The poor are famous for their misguided attempts to paint Biblical scenes and naked women on shoebox lids, barn siding, and all manner of unprofessional surfaces. If you're lucky enough to live in an urban area with lots of amateur artists, you may find a discarded painting right on the curb. Dab it with a glob or two of animal dung and presto! Your Christmas craft couldn't be more cutting edge. Those of us whose neighbors are miles down the mountain or a 15 minute jog along a stretch of private beach will have to do a little extra leg work and actually create a piece of outsider art from scratch. Try to entice your housekeeper's mentally retarded teenager into doodling a few stick men on to a wooden shingle. If that fails, drink a bottle of fine champagne, tie on a blindfold, and attempt to draw Andy Wyeth's Christina's World from memory with a red ball point pen.
Early American Doll
The poor have been handcrafting toys for their children since Laura Ingalls Wilder was chasing her blind sister around that rustic prairie "house." The pioneers fashioned adorable dolls for their daughters out of cornhusks and scraps from Ma's rag bag. Obviously, no sane child would be interested in playing with such a pathetic "toy," but the tiresome fellow seated to my right at a recent Smithsonian fundraising gala assured me that examples of the genre are a cherished part of the folk art collection. Put a modern spin on this impoverished tradition by seeking out the refuse of our daily lives. An empty bleach bottle makes a great body because it's white and that little handle can sort of look like an arm. Your housekeeper's teenager will come in handy again when it's time to scrawl a smiling face on the side with permanent marker. If this strikes you as an unrealistic suggestion (talking to the developmentally disabled is not for everyone), you can always cut a friendly face from Vanity Fair, affixing it to your bottle body with Scotch tape. For hair, trim a strip of fringe from a brown or yellow pashmina shawl and tie it directly to the bottle's neck. As long as this gift is presented simultaneously with a heavily accessorized dolly from the respectable, expensive American Girl Collection, your little princess is sure to be overcome.
Heirloom Pin
Even well-to-do Victorians incorporated the braided hair of their loved ones into keepsake jewelry, but this admittedly repellent tradition must have held special allure for the needy, who could not afford the exquisite settings and pear-shaped sapphires dripping from la cr¸me de societe. Rather than give Grandma a lifeless old hank of hair for Christmas, why not invest a little extra time to create something she'll pin to her bosom with pride on her next cruise to Barbados? Nail clippings can be glued to a circle of cardboard to form a starburst design. A safety pin taped to the back transforms this festive disk into a piece of wearable art! Whereas no one would care to wear the grimy, ragged cuticles of the actual poor, your polished acrylic nail tips are not only sanitary, they're colorful and durable as diamonds! If a whimsical holiday color scheme appeals, pay a visit to a manicurist whose clientele consists of receptionists and supermarket cashiers. While these hole-in-the-wall practitioners lack your usual girl's aesthetic je ne sais quoi, they do stock a veritable rainbow of downwardly mobile nail varnish, including green. Teamed with your own Dior luster-creme "Reagan Red" trimmings, these lurid parings can make a sprightly Christmas combination to be handed down from generation to generation.
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