2014 Christmas Present Project Countdown: Final Tally

I hope you all had a merry Christmas. We had a wonderful time relaxing and spending time with family. It's been nice to have a few days off and just relax.

With another Christmas come and gone, still the question remains...did I make my goal?

The answer to that question is complicated: yes, no, and maybe.

There's a whole lot of green there. I finished a total of 57 presents as of this evening. Included in that is one of the "extension" projects from earlier. Darian got back home tonight so I finished up one of the two projects I had planned for him. The other one is the one you see marked as "Easter" up above. The amount of time needed to complete it is way more than I had available, so I'm aiming to finish it for him by Easter. That should give me some room to sneak in the time to put it together, but it will all depend on how much he's around when I have time available to work. With me going back to school in a couple of weeks, it's very possible that he could be getting it for his birthday in the summer instead.

Now...let me explain why there are three different answers.


Yes :

I finished all of the projects that were necessary to give each person on my list at least one present. I also finished up all of the ones I set as a modified goal in the week prior to Christmas. I'm pretty happy about that. I consider that a success.

The presents for the altered goal were also finished by 10:30pm on December 23rd. That allowed me to be crafting free for Christmas Eve -- a very nice situation.


No :

Obviously I didn't finish all of the 70 projects I originally had planned. Four presents got completely cancelled and six presents (in addition to Darian's) have been postponed to be created as birthday presents for 2015. To be honest, I'm not too terribly upset by this.


Maybe :

I still have two extension projects that need finishing. I have three more days to complete them before we're meeting up with Owen and Patti. I know for sure I'll have one of these two finished. The second may become another birthday present. We'll see.


All in all, a very successful project undertaking. Everyone seemed pretty pleased with their presents and I learned a few new skills that I'm pretty happy about. I even managed to remember to take pictures during construction and got pictures of all completed projects before wrapping (with the exception of one, which we took pictures of after it was opened). That alone was a total win.

In addition, I now have a nice pile of projects to present as part of 2015's A to Z Challenge, which takes place in April. There are still a few things to make to fill in a couple of letter gaps, but for the most part I just need to edit photos and write posts and I'll be all set for April. That's a super nice feeling.

Now there are just a few things to wrap up before the end of the year (including a trip to the library tomorrow to renew the books I accidentally let go beyond their Christmas Eve due date), and then next on the agenda is the 2014 Book of the Year Bracket Challenge. Still need to sign up? No worries. The sign up is available until 12/31/2014 at 11:59pm. Go sign up and whittle down the books you read in 2014 to find your favorite. The fun begins on January 3rd, 2015.