Helena Fitzgerald calls the week between Christmas and New Year Dead Week. For me, it’s always the opposite — it’s the time of year when I go into a flurry of gift making. Given that most of my loved ones live on the other side of the planet, gifting requires advance planning. I love to start the New Year with a bit of hoard of future presents and cards, ready to pop in the mail at the appropriate time.

For a few years there, USPS wasn’t shipping parcels to Australia, which really put the kibosh on my handmade gift-giving. Even a card was taking up to three months to arrive. Ordering something from Book Depository to be shipped direct to the recipient just didn’t give me the same joy. So I’m thrilled that the mail service seems to be back to its pre-pandemic level of operation (still slow and expensive, but the goods get there within a month.)

All that to say … this isn’t Dead Week. For me, it’s Maker Week. 😊