My wife is a crafter, and she's created special gifts for family members for many years, but I've never done anything of the sort. How can I, as a writer, really do anything with my skill to give to family at the holidays? I've seen poets write nice poems for their family and friends, but I write fiction, not poetry. I found the answer to be easy and fun to do. I decided to write a short holiday-themed story to include in our Christmas cards. I started this tradition last year, and I continued with it this holiday season.
This is a gift you can make as simple or ornate as you please. Personally, both stories I've written have been one single page long on plain white paper; this makes it feel like an easy read for anyone, even those who prefer to do their reading by watching the movie. I may experiment in the future with such ideas as colored paper and possibly even decorations around the edges. It might be something my wife and I can work on together to make it a true family gift. Really, like all of fiction writing, the possiblities are limited only by your imagination.
I wrestled with the idea of creating stories with my family members as the stars, but I felt for the purposes of this nice, simple gift, that was going too far. The story would need to be quite long to tell a convincing story (maybe not long in the traditional sense of fiction, but I would classify a story longer than a page or two as too long for this endeavour). If you feel this would be best for your family, however, go for it. It's your gift to them, afterall! In the end, all that really matters is that you give a gift that you are truly proud of, and that will give your family a sense of pride and joy that you'd take the time to construct a special story just for them.
Merry Christmas and Happy Holdays!
